15.01.2015.
There is no discrimination in the Serbian Armed Forces
Defence Minister Bratislav Gasic denied today that there is any discrimination in the Serbian Armed Forces and at the same time he apologized a transgender person Major Helena (M.V.) because of, as he said, an administrative error in the decision of her retirement.
Gasic explained in his statement to Tanjug that he will personally apologize Major Helena for that and explained that she had been retired because there were conditions for it, and because of the needs of the service.
"In case of the Major who claims that he was retired because of the fact that he is a transgender person, I wish to emphasize that the only reason why this happened is the fact that he completed 20 years of service and that according to the needs of the service it had to be terminated", Gasic said.
According to him, there is no discrimination in the Serbian Armed Forces on any grounds.
"There was no discrimination and will never be. In support of this claim I will take this particular case. Since 2001 there is information that M.V. had different gender identity and in spite of that he worked in the units to which he was assigned for another 14 years and he had no problems because of that", Gasic said.
He added that Helena, i.e. M.V. had regular course of career and career advancement, but in the decision on retirement there appeared an "administrative error".
"Due to an administrative error in the decision there was a wording that does not correspond to the real causes, and I sincerely apologise our member for that and as early as tomorrow I will invite the journalists to apologize him personally for that error that appeared in the decision", Gasic said.
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