08. 10. 2007

ATTACKER WOUNDS MAN IN NOVI PAZAR TV

NOVI PAZAR, 8 October 2007 (B92, Beta) - One employee was seriously injured when an armed attacker broke into a Novi Pazar regional television station.
According to B92 sources from Novi Pazar, the attacker is believed to be the same man who forced his way into another local television during the airing of the interview with newly elected reis, Adem Zilkić.

The interview was taped earlier and aired at the same time by both stations.
 
The sources stated that the attacker was armed, insulting the editor, adding that he destroyed a part of the station’s equipment.

Tensions have flared in Novi Pazar since the appointment of Zilkić and the formation of a parallel Meshihat within the Islamic community of the Sandžak region, most notable between supporters of chief mufti Muamer Zukorlić and Zilkić supporters.

Yesterday, the Zukorlić group accused Serbian police (MUP) officers of raiding a mosque in Sjenica.

Internal Affairs Minister Dragan Jočić said Monday that any of the police officers who may have overstepped their authority would be punished.

“The situation in Novi Pazar and Sjenica is tense, but I think that everything is under control and that reason will prevail. The police will be decisive in keeping the public order and peace,” Jočić said.

“I stress that it is good that there were no serious conflicts. The police will try to keep order and peace, which is its obligation. The police will not get involved in any conflicts between the opposing sides,” Jočić told Beta news agency.

After a verbal conflict between the Zukorlić and Zilkić supporters in the Sjenica mosque on Saturday night, police intervened.

Meshihat of the Islamic community in Serbia stated that some 30 officers entered the mosque, using force to remove a delegation of the Islamic community and allegedly beating several of them, along with other worshippers.
 
Meshihat vice president Rešad Pojović claims that a police officer twisted his arm, and that one of the imams was hit with a nightstick while trying to visit the mosque, in which Zilkić and his followers were located at the time.

“This group of police officers forcefully took us to the police station in Sjenica, dragging those who did not want to go. When we asked for the names of the officers that hit us, they all took their name tags off their uniforms so that we could not see who struck us,” Pojović said.
 
He said that the police commander apologized to him, stating that the police did not know how to intervene in order to securing the safety of the worshippers, after they were called in to separate the two rival groups of Muslims.

“What they did was the opposite; the degraded the people they were supposed to be protecting,” Pojović said.

On the other hand, Zilkić’s cabinet chief Jakub Leković said that police reacted so that there would not be any escalating conflicts.
 
He told B92 that the imams, Zukorlić’s supporters, were being disrespectful towards the imam responsible for the Sjenica mosque.

“[One of them] came and said, ‘I am in charge today,’ then he stood up to perform his prayer, but those present stopped him and said ‘why do you have 15 people with you, and why are they armed?’"

"And then there was a scuffle and they called for an intervention by the police so that the situation would not escalate. First the police officers asked nicely and pleaded with them, because they saw that the men were armed, and then they had to use force to get them out,” Leković said.

Officials of Rasim Ljajić's Sandžak Democratic Party stated that they will not participate in the work of the Serbian Parliament "until the police officials who intervened with force in the Sjenica mosque are appropriately punished."