Archbishop Jovan in detention for eleven months!

Yesterday, on November 12, 2012, eleven months were completed since Archbishop Jovan is in detention.

Although he is already sentenced to a prison term, under the excuse that there is a new court process against him, the authorities are illegally and persistently keeping Archbishop Jovan in detention! There are other prisoners, such as the sentenced Ljube Boskovski, against whom new court processes are ongoing, but as opposed to Archbishop Jovan, they are not placed in detention, but in the Idrizovo prison! Only against one man different orders are being carried out, as if there were a purpose of silently killing him, and that man is Archbishop Jovan of Ohrid!

The purpose of detention is ensuring the presence at the court hearings and preventing the influence upon the other accused persons. The presence of Archbishop Jovan would have nevertheless been ensured if he were in the Idrizovo prison, and from there he would also not be able to influence anybody! But, despite the fact that he has diabetes as well as other health problems, Archbishop Jovan is tendentiously being held in the strict detention regime: twenty-three hours he is confined in a cell, without medical care, and with restrictions to the food that is being sent to him due to his illness, without fresh air, and for whole six months nobody has visited him, because the visits are prohibited even to the only ones that had the right to visit him, his mother and his sister!

On this occasion, we once more appeal towards the whole democratic public, to show humanity and make efforts for ceasing of the persecution on religious basis that is being performed against Archbishop Jovan and the Orthodox Ohrid Archbishopric, persecution on whose foundations it is not possible to build the future of R. Macedonia as an advanced democracy!

Source: Orthodox Ohrid Archbishopric