The Coalition against Discrimination condemns the statement of Nevena Petrusic, Commissioner for Protection of Equality, who promised in the daily Danas of 7 March that she would not file a lawsuit against the Metropolitan Amfilohije Radovic, even if he failed to act on her earlier recommendation. This Commissioner’s attitude is an encouragement to all those who on a daily basis use hate speech and justify violence against the members of various minority groups in Serbia. At the same time, such statements stultify the Commissioner’s main available tool - filing a lawsuit for violation of the prohibition of discrimination in cases where other protection mechanisms have failed.

The Commissioner for Protection of Equality was addressed by Labris, a member of the Coalition against Discrimination, and 25 citizens of Serbia, and as late as nearly 5 months after filing of their complaint, she made a decision establishing that the Metropolitan Amfilohije had used hate speech when he called the Pride participants "the stench of Sodom that poisoned and polluted Belgrade" and justified violence in the streets by saying that "violence of those ungodly and perverse people has caused more violence." The Coalition against Discrimination believes that the Commissioner properly qualified these statements as hate speech and welcomes the parts of her recommendations by which she required the Metropolitan Amfilohije to apologise to the LGBT community and to refrain from similar statements in the future.

However, the Coalition considers it completely unacceptable that in the case of hate speech to which the general public reacted and which gives an explicit justification of violence against the members of the LGBT community, the Commissioner responds with the request that the victims of this severe form of discrimination should meet with someone who obviously has no serious intention to change his position, which was confirmed a day after the Commissioner’s decision when the Metropolitan Amfilohije and Velibor Dzomic, Coordinator of the Metropolitan Legal Council, said that the Commissioner’s recommendation would not be implemented. In his statement given to Blic daily, the Metropolitan Amfilohije reiterated that we should "love the sinner" but "hate the sin and evil", again alluding to homosexuality, which he said was "a way that leads to destruction," "perversion" and "error".

Instead of reacting sharply and unambiguously to the repeated hate speech of Metropolitan Amfilohije, pointing out that his words were unacceptable and undermined the authority of her decision, the Commissioner gave a statement to Danas daily by which she actually promised to the Metropolitan that he would not be prosecuted, thus giving him a sort of "blessing" to continue with the same rhetoric of hate. At the same time, by stating that the Metropolitan Amfilohije would be just warned if he did not act upon her recommendation, but that there would be no lawsuit because she lacked the capacity for that, the Commissioner only encouraged others to commit discrimination and violate the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination.

The Coalition finds it particularly troubling that the Commissioner Nevena Petrusic said in her statement that "in the case of Metropolitan Amfilohije there is no reason for a lawsuit." According to Article 13 of the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination, which defines severe forms of discrimination, the Metropolitan Radovic’s hate speech may qualify, on several grounds, as a severe form of discrimination. His hate speech was presented through public media (Article 13, paragraph 3), repeated several times over a longer period (Article 13, paragraph 6), incited hatred and intolerance (Article 13, paragraph 1) and significantly contributed to the development of severe consequences for discriminated persons, other persons and property (Article 13, paragraph 7). Therefore, we believe that in this case there are certainly reasons for filing a lawsuit.

The Coalition against Discrimination urges the Commissioner for Protection of Equality to consistently apply the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination and to immediately start pointing to particularly severe forms of discrimination, which is her legal obligation. We demand that the Commissioner uses all the mechanisms envisaged by the law, especially to file lawsuits in particularly serious cases of discrimination, because technical issues and capacities cannot be an excuse for failing to implement the law. The Coalition against Discrimination expects from the Commissioner not to insist on a meeting between the victims of discrimination or representatives of the organisations that provide support to minority groups and the persons who justify violence and hate speech, especially when it is obvious that on that occasion they would use such speech. Instead, by her clear and unambiguous public statements, the Commissioner should provide support to all victims of discrimination in Serbia and encourage them to file complaints.

The members of the Coalition against Discrimination are: Center for Advanced Legal Studies, Civil Rights Defenders, Labris - Lesbian Human Rights Organisation, Anti-Trafficking Centre, Network of the Committees for Human Rights in Serbia (CHRIS Network), Association of Students with Disabilities, Gayten LGBT, Praxis and Regional Center for Minorities.