Shocked by the scandalous decision of the Parliament’s leadership to modify the official transcripts from parliamentary sittings through lies and censorship, in order to erase segments of the ruling majority MPs’ verbal attacks, we demand that such absolutely undemocratic, non-parliamentary and unethical practice immediately stops. In any functional parliamentary democracy, those responsible for such a scandal would suffer consequences and would be dismissed from their parliamentary positions.

In the “redacted” version of parliamentary transcript from Thursday, June 22, which was published on the Parliament’s website on Tuesday, June 27, the sentence: “You are murdering pensioners in Aranđelovac”, spoken by MP Nebojša Bakarec while interrupting the speech of MP Zoran Zečević, is missing. As such an action of an MP would present the justifiable reason for the reaction of the Speaker of the Parliament, any reaction was missing, while the cover-up of this sentence was used to manipulate the real events in the Parliament for the benefit of the ruling majority, following the established practice of the current parliamentary convocation.

The Open Parliament yesterday pointed to unusual delay of several days in publishing parliamentary transcripts from Thursday, June 22, which were published at the Parliament’s website only yesterday, on Tuesday, June 27. By comparing the excerpts of the preserved copy of the transcript that journalists and MPs received on June 22, and the transcript published at the Parliament’s website, the clear difference was identified – the comment of the MP Bakarec, which existed in the previous version of the transcript, was missing. The subsequent decision to stop the practice of forwarding parliamentary transcripts to journalists and MPs on the day of the parliamentary sitting, and to provide them only the following day, exemplifies the serious attempt to continue with this scandalous practice.

Hiding of the truth in parliamentary speeches most seriously undermines the transparency in the work of the highest institution in the Republic of Serbia, which represents the fundamental value that should not be questioned.

MPs are frequently subjected to reasonable critiques due to the inappropriate behavior, hate speech, verbal violence, and even situations on the verge of physical violence, transforming the legislative institution into the generator of violence in a society. However, it is not expected from the parliamentary leadership to use falsification in order to divert the truth in the official documents and present the work of the Parliament in a more acceptable way. 

Photo 1: A photograph of the original transcript from June 22, 2023, published by the MP Gavrilović

Photo 2: Screenshot of the transcript from June 22, 2023, published at the Parliament’s website on June 27, 2023