Serbia's notorious academy shocks: It doesn't exclude the academic who said “Kosovo isn't ours”

“The right to personal thought, as well as its expression, cannot be denied to anyone”, says the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Executive Board of Arts announced, in which the overwhelming majority of academics “the full support for Academy Chiefship and Executive Board”, including Prime Minister Vladimir Kostic, who said that “Kosovo is Serbia<5>.

The Executive Board of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts announced that “amid the attack on the president and individual members of the Academy, its governing bodies, as well as the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts as a whole, which these days have occupied the public, the overwhelming majority of Academy members feel the need to announce to their departments regarding this case”.

The “Tacts that almost all departments officially sent to the Headship and Executive Board, and in some cases all Academy members, are different in content and tone, but their common denominators are: 1. right to personal thought and expression, and 2. that it is inappropriate and unacceptable to call on the members of the Academy to declare individually on the principle "po" or not on the question posed by the procedure's own proposor, but also on account of the known political and historical associations that raise such a request”, a statement by the Academy says.

The statement said, among other things, that Academy members for many years were “fully free to express themselves about the Kosovo problem in various ways”.

The SANU Executive Board notes that the overwhelming “of academics have given their clear support to the presidency, the Executive Board and the SANU president to continue with their work”.

“Scala of this support significantly raises demands for even more responsible action, but also shows that the atmosphere created in public is unacceptable that Kosovo's problem is largely broken at the academy, which seems to become a paradigm for all this problem. This simply is not true: this is a problem that was neither created with the participation of the Academy, which was never even officially invited to take part in his solution. The academy has no official opportunity or authorization to do so”, the Serbian Academy Executive Board announced.

Serbia's Academy Executive Board emphasises that “Akademia as an institution, including most of its institutions, for decades, even today, offers and offers collected and researched materials, primarily digitised, publish data, thoughts and analysis based on scientific and artistic truth”.

This reaction comes after earlier statements by the Serbian Chief Academy, Vladimir Kostic, who had said that “somebody should tell these people that Kosovo is no longer de facto or de jure in our hands” and that at this moment, the only political “is how to leave Kosovo with dignity”.

A group of 93, called Serbian intellectuals, had sent an open letter to the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts demanding that its chairman, Vladimir Kostic, resign over his statements that “Kosovo was and will be our”.

But in the course of criticism of fierce attacks in the direction of Kostic, he had sided with Serbian politician Nebojsa Zelenovic.

“I support Academy Chairman Vladimir Kostic's proposal for the start of a serious and effective debate on Kosovo. The requirement for Kostic to leave the head of the Academy is, in essence, an invitation to escape reality and to surrender to fate, which we will not influence” had Zelenovic written on Twitter.

Recently, even the prominent Serbian historian Milan Protic came to the defense of the Serbian capital, saying Kosovo is independent, despite the fact that there is no comprehensive international recognition and no country in some of the international organisations.