It is with great indignation that we condemn the new media attacks on the professor of the Faculty of Transportation and academician Dušan Teodorović, in which critics without professional qualifications, moral scruples and a single argument accuse him of incompetence, plagiarism and lack of patriotism.
The accusations against Academician Teodorović are getting more and more mundane every day, but they come from people who, in addition to not having the necessary qualifications to evaluate scientific works, do not even have elementary decency. We are witnessing accusations that he "went over to the side of the aggressor", that he is "the stupidest of all academics", that he is a plagiarist, and the climax is the sick threat sent to academician Teodorović by Vojislav Šešelj. The academic community must not pass over such insults and discredits in silence.
We remind you that Academician Teodorović is one of the most respected and influential Serbian scientists at the world level. He has published dozens of articles in journals from the SCI list. The Google scholar database records almost 7,000 citations of his scientific works and an extremely high citation index (H-index=44). Academician Teodorović is a full professor at the Faculty of Traffic, a professor emeritus at the American University of Virginia Tech, an honorary senator of the University of Ljubljana, a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and a full member of SANU.
On behalf of MASA, we reject the aforementioned accusations and see them as attacks on the personal and scientific integrity of Professor Teodorović, but also as attacks on the dignity of the entire academic community. The attacks directed at him have the same stamp - none of them are reasoned, and all of them are aimed at discrediting the person and contain a tacit threat addressed to all those who publicly express their opinion. At a time when an increasing number of Serbian citizens are leaving Serbia, one of the reasons is certainly that by keeping silent about such cases, people are further encouraged to leave a country where insulting those who dare to think for themselves not only has no limits, but is rare gets an appropriate response.
Therefore, we invite SANA, the University of Belgrade, the Faculty of Transportation and the general public to join our support and show solidarity with their colleagues, thereby standing up for the protection of science and education in Serbia.
