I just was watching (July5th @ 10:00- 11:00) your TV show: “RightsCity 2019 Conference – Democracy under Threat”, hosted by Francine Pelletier, who lead a discussion with Jeremy Kinsman and Michael J. Abramowitz- And was appalled and deeply offended by the unfounded anti-Serbian bias demonstrated by the anonymous last public participant in the discussion, who aggressively (and very emotionally- which suggests his obvious “ethnic bias towards Serbs”) accused Canada for hosting alarming number of “Serbian war criminals”, and for not taking punitive measures against them- suggesting that “around 20,000 Serbian war criminals have been sheltered here”!?

More appalling to me was a complete ignorance, of this very obvious (unfounded and unsupported by any concrete evidence) anti-Serbian stunt, by the host Pelletier and two panel participants. Mr Kinsman even went further, by blindly & cynically accepting “the fact” that in Canada allegedly live “dozens of thousands of Serbian war criminals”..

..If we know for the fact that in Canada, according to Census from 2016, live at least 33,055 Serbs (of course that number is in reality much higher), and if we take to account, that only some of the Serbian refugees, fleeing former Yugoslavia after 1991 (start of the violent breakup of Yugoslavia) up to early 2000ies, could be technically accused for the alleged war crimes (subject to due legal process, including the presumption of innocence), than we have to face the fact- supported again by the Canadian census from 2016 (which suggests that between 10,000 and 50,000 Serbian refugees arrived to Canada following the civil wars in former Yugoslavia and NATO occupation of Serbian province Kosovo in 1990ies– which then implies that most of Serbian refugees from that period were “war criminals”, including women and children?) that by broadcasting, and not challenging, such monstrous anti-Serbian accusation- CPAC practically aligned itself with the anonymous and biased commentator, effectively supporting “hate speech” against well respected Serbian community in Canada.

I, as Serbian-Canadian- who (together with my family) first hand witnessed and experienced anti-Serbian bias and hatred in late 1990ies, back then even my children were almost daily harassed by their teachers and peers, for simply being Serbs, not to mention daily harassment I experienced from my coworkers- I was hoping that this dark episode, triggered by the Canadian participation in NATO illegal war against Serbia in 1999 (when Canadian media “en masse” lined up with their government war efforts, non-objectively spreading anti-Serbian war propaganda) was behind us…

..I will give you just one drastic example how Canadian monstrous war propaganda looked like then>

In the midst of NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, CTV anchor Lisa LaFlamme in the evening national TV news “reported” bluntly that Serbian forces have captured 10,000 Albanian boys in Kosovo city of Djakovica, where they have been held in military barracks to be later slaughtered as “the unwilling blood donors”- while reality was the opposite (which was factually proven by the UN report: CKX103, from 2002)- UN report states that in same time hundreds of kidnapped and imprisoned Serbian civilians were transported (with “silent NATO approval”) to the Albanian “make shift medical clinics” to be there butchered alive for their human organs. Even this Lisa LaFlamme’ accusation, (after the war was over), never was proven and obviously was false, neither her or CTV never apologized for, effectively, spreading the ethnic hatred and practically inciting the violence against Canadian Serbs..

..Obviously I was wrong; these “dark times” defacto (as we can see from this CPAC example) are not behind us. Even, I expect now to see more of the anti-Serbian bias from Canadian media in coming days, but the last media I expected to see them to jump blindly into “the Anti-Serbian Wagon”, effectively participating in the spreading of ethnic hatred against one Canadian ethnic group, was CPAC- which I honestly respected, until now…

At the end, I expect at least your apology, not to me personally, but to the entire, well respected and law abiding, Serbian-Canadian community- which is I believe deeply offended by this (intentional or accidental– it doesn’t really matter) “hate speech”, broadcasted on your TV at the prime time…

Sincerely,

M. Novakovic, Vancouver

On July 5^th, 2019

Author and investigative journalist, “FBR Media” founder

(International Federation of Journalists ID #SB7105)