SERBIA & MONTENEGRO
Serbian cartoon draws criminal proceedings by picturing statesmen in
a "degrading position" (1993)
On June 25, 1993, the Novi Sad District Court in the former Yugoslavia reached
a verdict on instituting criminal proceedings against Dragoljub Zarkovic,
the editor-in-chief of Vreme on charges of "publicly exposing
statesmen in an offensive and degrading position." The cartoon, by
Predrag (Corax) Koraksic, appeared in Vreme six weeks earlier,
on May 10. In the cartoon, the protagonists of the Jahrina Assembly (where
the Bosnian Serbs rejected the Vance-Owen plan) are playing a children's
game called "rotten mares," a Balkan version of leapfrog. The
all politician participants in the picture include Serbian president Slobodan
Milosevic and Greek Prime Minister Konstantin Mitsotakis. The
point of the game is that the team jumping on the "mare" overthrows
the team playing the "mare." In terms of winning the game, Corax's
cartoon does not offer a solution.
Although the court contended that by portraying their leaders in an "offensive
and degrading position," the cartoon is violating the reputations of
both the states of Yugoslavia and Greece, it never officially explained
what the prosecution actually meant by the words "offensive" and
"degrading." Corax testified about the wordless cartoon that "it
never crossed my mind to draw what crossed the prosecutor's mind."
Since the defense lawyer could not get a specific description of the position(s)
regarded as degrading from the prosecution, the verdict was eventually abolished
upon an appeal and the subject returned to the examining judge for further
consideration. While the case was still pending, Corax had this to say:
"Forty years of experience in cartooning and caricaturing have taught
me that the more primitive a person is, the more he sees a caricature as
an insult, and vice versa: the more he laughs at his own caricature, the
less it bothers him." A public statement denied that the charges were
initiated by the President's Cabinet.
Corax's cartoon. From left to right standing: Greek
President Konstantin Mitsotakis; Bending: Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic;
Former Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic, and Montenegrin President Momir
Bulatovic; Jumping: Serbian Vice-President in Bosnia-Herzegovina Biljana
Plavic, President of the parliament in Bosnia-Herzegovina Momcllo Krajisnik,
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Serbian Radical Party
Vojislav Seselj, and Vice-President of the Serb Republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina
Nikola Koljevic. |
