Front Line learned with deep sadness today of the death of our good friend and colleague Biljana Kovacevic-Vuco, a human rights defender of immense courage and conviction.

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Today we received the sad news from Belgrade that Biljana Kovacevic-Vuco our good friend from YUCOM - the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights has died. After a long wait for a kidney transplant this finally happened in January but she suffered unforeseen complications and died on Tuesday.

Biljana was a true human rights defender who braved slander, attacks and intimidation to continue her work. She was also intelligent, irreverent and great fun. She was no respecter of the powerful or the pompous and she had a laugh that can only be described as an absolute CACKLE.

With Natasa Kandic and Sonja Biserko she was portrayed as one of "the three witches" who were demonised by the nationalist press and politicians because they thought Serbia deserved a better future than that offered by right wing nationalistic militarism. The right wing media even published a caricature of the three women with a bulls eye target on their backs - encouraging people to attack them.

Biljana featured in the Defending Life with Life photographic exhibition - see above. It is a mark of the respect that Biljana earned through her work that the news of her death was carried in both Forbes Magazine and The New York Times.

Biljana will be missed.