An Angers lawyer's complaint followed by Bob Dylan's indictment

Ivan Jurasinovic

The complaint an Angevin lawyer, Ivan Jurasinovic, had registered against the american singer Bob Dylan, has been followed by the indictment of that one by a Paris examining magistrate last november for "insults" and "incitation to racial hatred". The procedure was implemented by Mr Jurasinovic on behalf the Representative Council of Croatian Institutions and Community of France (Rccicf) after Bob Dylan said to the French edition of the Rolling Stone magazine : "If you have Ku Klux Klan in your blood, Blak people may feel it, even today. As the Jews feel nazi blood and Serbs Croatian blood".

In a press release, the Rccicf pointed out that "those words of uncommon violence have deeply shocked Croatian people, in Croatia, in France and all over the world, particularly as a little pacific nation not long ago wounded by the independance war [against Serbia after Yugoslavia collpased]". The indictment of Mr. Dylan, 72 years old, was simultaneous to his reception in the French Légion d'honneur order by France minister of culture, Aurélie Filipetti.

Bob Dylan

The Croatian community expressed that "it was not looking for damages and wishes before everything that Bob Dylan,  for who Croatia has love and respect, apologizes". Mr. Jurasinovic had already got president Stipe Mesic and former Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic' sentences. Croatia is member of the European Union since July 2013 and plans to take the euro as its national currency in 2015.