MASA, as a professional organization of civil society, founded with the aim of providing support to members of the academic community and advocating the inviolable right to free expression of professional and scientific opinion, referring to the freedom of speech guaranteed by the Constitution of the RS, closely monitors public and political discourse, noting with regret to continue with incoherent attacks on free-thinking individuals, primarily members of the academic community.
During the summer months, we once again witnessed an attack based on the already established method of tabloidization of the academic community, by presenting the most heinous untruths and accusations against distinguished professors of the University of Belgrade, prof. Dr. Dubravke Stojanović and Prof. Dr. Danica Popović. The latest attack by representatives of the executive branch directly or through the supporting tabloid media and their editors-in-chief is aimed at another member of the academic community, Dr. To Vojin Rakić, full professor and scientific advisor, director of the Center for Bioethical Studies and head of the European Directorate of the UNESCO Department of Bioethics in Haifa. The attacks are aimed at discrediting the person, and their initiators use the tried-and-tested spin technique to divert attention from important questions that have been publicly posed to the representatives of the executive power.
MASA believes that it is particularly unacceptable that the editorial board of a tabloid, which has no competence for that, deals inappropriately with the scientific views expressed in the published scientific work of Dr. Vojin Rakić in a peer-reviewed foreign scientific journal. All the more so since the practice of tabloidization of science can be disastrous from the point of view of the development of the entire society, not just the academic community. The Coordination Committee of the Mass therefore notes with regret that along with the specific destruction of political culture, the culture of public communication, the suppression of media freedoms, we are clearly moving in the direction of further destruction of society, which is reflected in the collapse of basic social values, but also the suppression of human rights. In this particular case, we point to a violation of rights to freedom of opinion and expression, which includes the right not to be harassed because of one's opinion, as well as the right to seek, receive and disseminate information and ideas by any means and regardless of borders, which is defined by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
