Seventh-day Adventist Church in Serbia was the target of vandalism July 10 in the posting of a message signed by a neo-Nazi group.

A poster, which read "sects are the death of the Serbian nation" and signed by the "Nacionalni Stroj" movement, was posted on the wall of the Adventist Church in Belgrade.

Several young men arrived on a motorcycle to post the message, said Miodrag Zivanovic, president of the Adventist Church in South-east Europe.

The incident was caught on surveillance tape, Zivanovic said, and underlines the volatile position for religious minorities in Serbia.

Adventists and other religious communities have been targeted several times in the last year by ultra-nationalists and neo-Nazi groups, Serbia's B92 news reported.

Adventist Church officials in the country called again on the government to "secure a peaceful and safe life in which the indestructible spirit of tolerance, understanding and trust will rule." Hatred attacks on Christian Churches in Serbia are continuing since more than five years.

Already in April 2003 the South-east European Union Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church appealed in an Open Letter to the Serbian governmental authorities that "all those incidents contribute to the feelings of insecurity and discontent with the measures taken for the protection of our rights to freely practice our religious convictions."

Miodrag Zivanovic pointed out, that "even though we always reported those incidents, the taken measures were not adequate nor we were protected in the appropriate manner. Public declarations and inscriptions of all sorts point a finger of hatred to our acknowledged Church, that is irresponsibly and unauthorizedly called a sect, often are a cause of open hostility and antagonism that turns people against the [Adventist] Church".

Full text of the Open Letter (April 2003):