Acting leader of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) Danijel Zivkovic has warned today at a press conference that the aim of holding the census in such conditions is “ethnic engineering”. He has clearly indicated that we do not have an environment in which citizens can regularly express themselves in the census. He adds that DPS Presidency will propose a boycott of the population census to the party’s executive committee, if they do not receive answers from the Government and other institutions to the demands by the end of the day.
It’s recalled that DPS, among other things, requested the postponement of the population census for a period of at least 6 months.
Zivkovic has stated today that it is necessary to control the process in order to have confidence in the integrity of the collected data.
“The institutions of the system do not provide control of the process. A boycott is the only measure against the behavior and attitude of the authorities towards our demands. They want to forcibly carry out the census in these conditions, because for them this is par excellence a political and ethnic issue. For us, it is a statistical one”, Zivkovic has stressed at the press conference.
Porfirije’s messages are clear.
“Those who were not clear about what the census is for, it became clear yesterday”, says Zivkovic, referring to the messages sent by the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Porfirije, who said that they know what language they speak and what people they belong to, that is, that they belong to the Serbian people.
“If we add to that the announcement that citizens will be punished, then it is clear that Monstat has also put itself in that role. That has nothing to do with the truth, nor is such a punishment possible in the Census Law”, Zivkovic has stressed.
