The Gender Equality Committee held its fifth sitting on 3 October. The sitting was chaired by the Committee Chairperson Elena Bozic-Talijan.

The sitting discussed the appeal of the President of the Municipal Assembly of Knic, Snezana Bankovic. The Committee censured the initiative of a group of MA Knic officials to have Snezana Bankovic released from the duty of President of MA Knic, due to the fact that as statement of grounds it cited that “the person elected for the post of President of MA Knic took a year’s maternity leave thus incapacitating the activities of Ma Knic”.

The Committee decided to forward an emergency item request to the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government and Ministry of Labour and Social Policy to have the case reexamined and submit their opinion i.e. feedback to the Committee.

The Committee members went on to decide to forward a request to the Director of RTS to tender his resignation, and if he refuses, a request to the authorities in charge to have him dismissed from the post of Director of RTS. As reason for the request for resignation i.e. dismissal of the head of RTS, the Committee cites his responsibility for the broadcast of an episode of the reality show “48 Hours Wedding” at the public service.

After the discussion of the matter the Committee forwarded the following letter to the Executive Board of RTS and the Director General, Alexander Tijanic:

At the sitting held on 3 October 2007, the Gender Equality Committee of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia reached a decision to request that you tender your resignation to the position of Director General of RTS and to request from the Executive board of RTS to dismiss you from the position of Director General of RTS if you do not tender your resignation.

By broadcasting the episode of “48 hours wedding” in which the bride, groom and the bride’s mother present slapping and beating a woman as a socially acceptable behaviour pattern, you openly promote violence towards women.

When LDP Deputy Milena Stankovic criticized the promotion of domestic violence you obfuscated the matter by characterising it as a personal political attack on you. You were precise in your identification of your political opponents – “LDP, some Radicals and some Socialists” and you entered into a political confrontation. However, Mr Tijanic, you have forgotten one important detail - you are not a politician, but the Director of the public service.

Attempting to justify the promotion of domestic violence, you then characterised this show as an “extraordinary socio-psychological study”, and insulted the Members of Parliament by claiming that they have come to “wrong conclusions about the first part of the show ’48 hours wedding’ because of bad eye-sight and certain now obvious intentions”. The Gender Equality Committee condemns such an attack on the Members of Parliament and denigration of the dignity of the National Assembly.

You have cast the host and the public service in the role of “educator”, who ostensibly, as you claim, at the end “managed to fulfill its mission and reeducate the bully”. However, you have forgotten one important detail, Mr Tijanic, which is that neither the host nor you are medical professionals or psychologists or social workers, ergo you are not qualified to work with individuals prone to violent behaviour.

Mr Tijanic, these are the reasons why the Gender Equality Committee demands that you tender your resignation to the position of Director General of RTS.