On 26 June, International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the Belgrade Centre of Human Rights alerts the public to the fact that offences of torture and other forms of ill-treatment in Serbia still go largely unpunished, that the few perpetrators actually found guilty of these crimes – are handed down extremely lenient sentences, usually conditional prison sentences, while the courts regularly neglect the victims’ right to redress and refer them to file damage claims, resulting in their revictimisation and additional expenses. The realisation of the victims’ rights, especially to redress, is further undermined by the discontinuation of criminal prosecution for such offences due to the expiry of the statute of limitations. The victims are again merely left with the possibility of launching civil proceedings to prove they had suffered “civil law damages”, while the criminal liability of their torturers and abusers can no longer be ascertained.

The numerous cases of police brutality during the July 2020 protests illustrate the impunity of public officials for torture and other forms of ill-treatment. None of the implicated officers have been punished for their brutality during the protests; only a few, those who participated in the incident in Novi Sad, have been identified. The Belgrade Public Prosecution Office took the statements of most victims only in the spring of 2021. The only procedure in which the police were found guilty of ill-treatment and violating civil rights was the one concerning eight cases that was conducted by the Protector of Citizens, who, however, missed the opportunity to require of the state to afford redress to the victims of police abuse without delay.

The BCHR also draws attention to this year’s messages of UN experts, that torture victims are entitled to rehabilitation and that individuals, experts and civil society organisations assisting them in the process have the right to carry out their work unfettered of restrictions and reprisals. The UN human rights experts expressed concern that torture survivors continued to face challenges in accessing redress and reparations, including the fullest rehabilitation possible. They urged States to “enable a conducive environment for redress and rehabilitation for victims of torture, and for civil society to operate freely.”

In their joint statement, UN human rights experts said that the trend of reprisals, through restrictive and retaliatory measures against civil society and torture survivors seeking redress through the UN mechanisms remained prevalent and that impunity was widespread across the world. “Governments continue to systematically deny the existence of such abhorrent practices, refuse to prosecute perpetrators and use intimidation and reprisals against civil society organizations, human rights defenders, whistleblowers and journalists in order to deter them from speaking out and obtaining redress for victims.”

The BCHR has for over a decade now been analysing court and prosecutorial cases concerning torture and ill-treatment at the hands of public officials. Our experience and direct work with the victims demonstrates that victims of torture in Serbia face obstacles at all levels as they attempt to obtain justice and rehabilitation.

On World Refugee Day, marked on 20 June, the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights alerts to the plight of refugees, exacerbated by the global COVID-19 pandemic. Fleeing from conflict and persecution, refugees have been facing substantial limitations of their fundamental rights as numerous states introduced a number of restrictive anti-COVID-19 measures. According to UNHCR data, nearly 80 million people, almost half of them children, are displaced globally due to persecution or conflict.

Over the past year, refugees living in Serbia have had difficulty accessing the asylum procedure. Their freedom of movement has been restricted and they had difficulty exercising some of their integration-related rights. Refugees living in Serbia largely depend on support extended by civil society organizations, while systemic solutions and efficient coordination among state authorities are lacking. Some headway has, however, been made: the state has recognised refugees and asylum seekers as a vulnerable category and included them in the COVID-19 vaccination process.

In 2020, 144 people applied for asylum in Serbia, almost half as many as in 2019. The difference can be ascribed to the decline in the number of newly-arrived refugees, migrants and asylum seekers, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. The Asylum Office upheld 29 asylum claims in 2020, bringing the number of successful asylees to 194 since the asylum system was established in 2008.

At the same time, the problems of refugees and IDPs, who fled the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, have not been resolved. Assessments are that over 26,500 of them still have the status of refugees.

The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights has been extending free legal aid to refugees and asylum seekers since 2012. It has been representing them before domestic and international bodies, supporting their integration in Serbian society and lobbying for the improvement of the status of all refugees in Serbia. Through its activities and its ongoing online campaign #MiLjudiZajednoMožemoViše (We People Can Do More Together), the BCHR has been endeavouring to raise public awareness of the importance of refugee integration, and the significance of social cohesion and multiculturalism for bridging the gap between communities and creating a more tolerant society in which everyone has the chance to live their life in dignity.

The House of Human Rights and Democracy warns the competent institutions, as well as the domestic and international public, of serious endangering of the safety of journalists that comes with the latest in a series of attacks by pro-regime media and tabloids on KRIK – an independent investigative media and part of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

The accusations made in some media that KRIK journalists and editorial office cooperated with criminal groups represent a serious threat to media freedom because the facts are the opposite. KRIK is working on revealing the connections of the mafia with public officials. Unfounded accusations expose these journalists to life danger, paradoxically only 10 days after the Government of Serbia activated the SOS telephone for journalists whose safety is endangered.

When government officials and media close to them constantly accuse independent journalists and media of being traitors, foreign mercenaries, an extended arm of the opposition, ignorant and liars, conspirators in the victory of the coronavirus, and now even collaborators suspected of the most serious acts of organized crime, it is the government and media close to the government that bear full responsibility for endangering the safety of journalists, freedom of the media and the absence of the rule of law.

That is why we call on the competent prosecutor’s office, the Government of the Republic of Serbia, the Ministry of Culture and Information and REM to take all necessary steps to stop drawing targets on journalists and independent media. The Constitution and laws specify that there is a duty and obligation of these institutions to do everything in their power to protect the safety of journalists and to enable the freedom of media and freedom of expression that should exists in a democratic, European society that Serbia strives to be.

Members of the Human Rights House:
– Civic initiatives
– Belgrade Centre for Human Rights
– Committee of Lawyers for Human Rights – YUCOM
– Helsinki Committee for Human Rights
– Centre for Practical Policy

In late December 2020, the Serbian Constitutional Court upheld the constitutional appeal filed on behalf of 17 Afghani nationals, including four children under five and three children under seven years of age, who had expressed the intention to seek asylum in the Republic of Serbia. The BCHR filed the constitutional appeal claiming violations of their rights in March 2017, a month after they were pushed back from Serbia to Bulgaria in the midst of winter.  

The Constitutional Court found violations their rights enshrined in the Serbian Constitution, specifically: the right to liberty and security (Art. 27(3)) in conjunction with their rights in case of deprivation of liberty not ordered by the court (Art. 29(1)), and their freedom of movement (Art. 39(3)) in conjunction with the right to inviolability of their physical and mental integrity (Art. 25). The Constitutional Court also found that they had not been extended adequate legal aid.

In cooperation with the Gendarmerie and Army of Serbia, the Gradina Border Police patrol on 3 February 2017 deprived the 17 migrants of liberty on the road to Dimitrovgrad. They were brought before a misdemeanour judge in Pirot, who discontinued the misdemeanour proceedings against them after they expressed the intention to seek asylum. The Serbian police were ordered to issue all of them certificates of intention to seek asylum so that they could be referred to an asylum centre. However, that night, the police subjected them to inhuman and degrading treatment as they took them to the border zone and pushed them back to Bulgaria. The Afghani migrants were forced to walk through the woods at below freezing temperatures, without any documents, all of which, including those issued in Serbia, the police had seized.

The Constitutional Court concluded that the police officers’ treatment of the 17 Afghani migrants had been inhuman, noting that the Pirot Misdemeanour Court concluded that they were refugees who fled their war-torn country of origin area, had expressed the intention to seek asylum and were thus eligible for protection under Serbian law. The Constitutional Court’s decision, the first on a constitutional appeal for illegal expulsion of persons who expressed their intention to seek asylum in Serbia, will be published in the Official Gazette in public interest.

To recall, the Serbian Government in July 2016 adopted a Decision on the Establishment of Joint Police-Army Forces to combat illegal migration and human trafficking along the border with Macedonia and Bulgaria. This facilitated pushbacks of aliens, who were denied the opportunity to access the asylum procedure in Serbia.

In its Concluding observations of April 2017, the UN Human Rights Committee expressed concern about reported cases of efforts to deny access to Serbian territory and asylum procedures, of collective and violent expulsions and of the misapplication of the “safe third country” principle, despite concerns regarding conditions in some of those countries. It recommended that Serbia refrain from collective expulsion of aliens and ensure an objective assessment of the level of protection when expelling aliens to “safe third countries”.

A detailed analysis of the Constitutional Court decision will be published in BCHR’s upcoming Right to Asylum in the Republic of Serbia, Periodic Report for January-March 2021.

More about the case is available in BCHR’s Right to Asylum in the Republic of Serbia, Periodic Report for January-March 2017, pp. 22-27.

The Protector of Citizens dismissed BCHR’s initiative to perform an ex officio review and establish any errors or omissions on the part of the relevant medical institutions that may have led to a higher number of COVID-19 deaths and infections amongst health professionals in Serbia.

In his letter to BCHR of 20 January 2021, the Protector of Citizens said that the requirements for initiating a review of the operations of administrative authorities had not been fulfilled because the BCHR should have first sent requests for free access to information of public importance to the Ministry of Health and the Public Health Institute Dr Milan Jovanović Batut, asking them about the higher number of COVID-19 deaths and infections among health professionals.

The media have over the past few weeks been publishing alarming information and statements by doctors, representatives of the Serbian Trade Union of Doctors and Pharmacists and other medical workers, who said that around 70 doctors succumbed to COVID-19 in 2020. They drew attention to the major discrepancies between the mortality rates among health professionals, especially doctors, in Serbia and the other countries in the region (e.g. Croatia and Slovenia). In their opinion, the main reasons for the higher rates in Serbia included, among others, staff shortages, lack of quality protection equipment, inadequate testing protocols in COVID-19 zones, et al. 

Neither the Ministry of Health nor the Batut Institute have reacted to such information to date or to public appeals and requests by health professionals to release the official data on the number of medical workers who succumbed to COVID-19.

To recall, under Articles 24 and 32 of the Protector of Citizens Act, the Protector of Citizens is entitled to himself initiate a review of the operations of administrative authorities based on information he learns in any manner, in order to ascertain whether any systemic shortcomings resulted in violations of human rights, in this case of health professionals during the COVID-19 epidemic. BCHR notes with regret that the Protector of Citizens – who referred to the wrong provisions of the Protector of Citizens Act, specifically the ones governing the review of complaints filed by individuals who believe their human rights have been violated – let the BCHR and the public know that he has no intention of addressing this concerning issue.

This was the second time BCHR asked the Protector of Citizens to review the efficiency of the Health Ministry’s management of the COVID-19 epidemic. In June 2020, it requested of the Ombudsman to review the work of the Health Ministry after BIRN said that Serbia underreported the number of COVID-19 deaths and infections in the March-May 2020 period. Several months later, the Protector of Citizens notified the BCHR that he would not initiate such a review “in view of the fact that the Ministry of Health said it would re-examine the entire procedure of entering and processing data in the COVID-19 Information System”. After pressures from reporters to address the issue, the Ombudsman in mid-October 2020 “asked” the Health Minister to notify him of the Ministry’s findings of the re-examination at an unspecified time in the future. To recall, the Health Minister said that the re-examination of the number of COVID-19 deaths and infections would be undertaken once the pandemic was over.