Donor: The Council of Europe (CoE)
Duration of project: September 2001 – April 2002
The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights organised a three-phase project for the abolition of the death penalty in Serbia. In the first phase, a mode survey on the level of consciousness of the death penalty in Serbia was designed by Professor Dragan Popadić. The survey passed Council of Europe scrutiny, and by their recommendations new questions were included and an opinion poll was added. A one-day training course for survey conductors followed, and the trained conductors travelled around Serbia gathering data from respondents of different ages, sexes and educational backgrounds. A similar campaign was subsequently taking place at universities and courts around Serbia. Collected results were catalogued and a survey analysis was conducted by Popadić.
The second phase of the project was the organisation of a training course for future lecturers on the death penalty. The course took place from 3 – 5 December at Hotel Palace in Belgrade.
The third phase involved five debates on the death penalty. All of these occurred outside of Belgrade, in Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Niš, Kraljevo, and Zrenjanin. Leaflets titled “Abolition of the Death Penalty” were also published and distributed.
