Slider - 2021

A new brochure of BHCR: “Encounters- a short guide on interculturality, acceptance and togetherness” promoted in Polet

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December 30, 2021

polet-1 (1)A new brochure of the Belgrade Centre for Human rights: „Encounters- a short guide on interculturality, acceptance and togetherness“ provides information on important terms connected to the topic of interculturality and cultural identities. This guide also shares concrete examples and practical guidelines on intercultural communication, acceptance and diversity, solidarity, and allyship.

The brochure was promoted during an interactive event “Encounters” that took place in Polet,  where the audience had the opportunity to discuss interculturality topics and became familiar with the brochure.  We have a plan to translate the brochure to english and /or farsi and other languages. 

brošura susretiThis youth-friendly guide motivates youth to explore their own identities, question their own prejudices, and develop intercultural competencies. The guide can be useful to youth as well as to those working with youth in formal and non-formal education activities.

The guide is one of the results of the CoolTour Tube program. It is a program for integration, intercultural learning and solidarity of youth, which encourages communication between youth with different cultural backgrounds.The program is part of the project „Support to refugees and asylum seekers in the Republic of Serbia“ which is implemented by Belgrade Center for Human Rights with the support of UNHCR in Serbia.

The brochure is available here in Serbian.

BCHR Holds Annual Final Event “Challenges in Refugees’ Integration in Serbia, Focusing on (Tertiary) Education”

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December 27, 2021

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On 23 December 2021, the BCHR hosted the final annual event Challenges in Refugees’ Integration Process in Serbia, Focusing on (Tertiary) Education in the Human Rights House. The BCHR has traditionally been holding final events on issues relevant to the integration of refugees in Serbia’s society at the end of the year.

IMG_8496The event provided the participants with the opportunity to discuss refugee integration in Serbia,  share experiences and good practices and map the problems in the process. It was also an occasion to review the successful models of refugee integration via their access to tertiary education. The participants discussed the challenges faced in practice and the first steps of accessing high education, scholarship opportunities, cooperation with state institutions and heard about Italy’s successful practice in this area.

The event was moderated by Anja Stefanović, the Coordinator of the Asylum and Migration Programme. The first session was devoted to challenges refugee integration in Serbia faced in practice, with focus on the refugees’ access to tertiary education. The panellists included Dajena Ristić of the Serbian Refugee and Migration Commissariat, Ivana Jelić and Ksenija Papazoglu of the UNHCR Durable Solutions Team, Časlav Mitrović of the Serbian Qualification Agency, and Jelena Ilić, BCHR’s Senior Integration Adviser, who presented the BCHR integration team’s practice. 

IMG_8494Michele Telaro, UNHCR Italy Durable Solutions Associate, joined the second session via ZOOM and presented the work of the Italy office, providing good practice examples concerning refugees’ access to high education. 

Between the two sessions, Nina Miholjčić, BCHR’s Integration Advisor, presented the results of the public opinion survey on refugees/migrants.

The event was held in a hybrid format – the panellists met in the Human Rights House while the other participants followed the discussions live via ZOOM, BCHR’s YouTube channel and Facebook profile.

The event is available on the link below.

26th “Vojin Dimitrijević“ Human Rights School Ends

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Capture-SLJP-1Another generation of students and young professionals successfully completed this year’s “Vojin Dimitrijević” Human Rights School  on Wednesday, 15 December, which closed with a lecture on what non-government organisations are and why they are important. This, 26th Human Rights School was held online only, via ZOOM, because of the anti-pandemic measures.

Thirty-two participants from across Serbia had the opportunity to attend intensive comprehensive training on human rights and their protection. They were familiarised with as many as 45 topics, notably, the development and sources of human rights law, as well as topics concerning the right to life, prohibition of discrimination, prohibition of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, the right to liberty and security, the freedom of expression, media and human rights, personal data protection and access to information of public importance, international humanitarian law and many others.

Over 50 hours of lectures held during the “Vojin Dimitrijević” Human Rights School also covered privacy and human rights in the digital age, freedoms of association and public assembly, economic and social rights, asylum and migration, rights of the child, rights of national minorities and rights of LGBT persons. The participants also followed lectures on Chapters 23 and 24 of Serbia’s accession talks with the EU, judicial independence, protection of human rights before courts in Serbia and the right to a fair trial, international criminal courts, the European Court of Human Rights, the European Union and human rights, and protection of human rights before UN bodies. The lectures also covered the increasingly topical issues of business and human rights and the right to a healthy environment.

Most participants in the “Vojin Dimitrijević” Human Rights School are senior undergraduate and graduate students of law, political sciences and other social sciences. This year’s attendees also included students majoring in languages and biology. All of them signed up for the School because they wanted to learn more about human rights so that they could themselves engage in and contribute to their respect in Serbia in the future.

The holding of the Human Rights School was supported by the German Foreign Ministry via the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Belgrade and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Belgrade.

Public Opinion Survey on Refugees and Migrants in Serbia in 2021

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December 24, 2021

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The Belgrade Centre of Human Rights has the pleasure to present the results of the public opinion survey poll on refugees and migrants in the Republic of Serbia. 

The key survey findings show that the vast majority of Serbia’s citizens (85%) do not know how many migrants and refugees are living in Serbia. Only 15% of the pollees said that they knew how many migrants are now living in Serbia; on average, they put their number at around 22,000.

Most of the respondents (56%) were against Serbia granting African and Middle East refugees citizenship; 25% disagreed. The respondents’ answers to questions on the refugees’ integration in terms of their employment and education, whether they would have anything against refugees becoming part of their family or living in their neighbourhoods indicate that women, university graduates, residents of urban settlements and youth are more tolerant towards refugees.

One out of two respondents said that they would befriend refugees from Africa or the Middle East. Willingness to befriend refugees was slightly higher in Vojvodina and among university graduates. Slightly over half of the respondents (54%) would not be pleased if an African or Middle East refugee married into their family. Many of the latter are male and live in rural areas. On the other hand, slightly over a third of the respondents (37%) would have no problem with that; many of them were women, youth and university graduates.

Over half (56%) of the pollees would have nothing against African and Middle East refugees settling down in their neighbourhood. Many of them were Belgraders and residents of other urban areas. On the other hand, 39% disagree with them, mostly because they fear for the safety of their neighbourhood. Headway on this issue has been noted compared with 2019, when only 42% of the respondents would have welcomed refugees in their neighbourhood.

The vast majority of respondents (78%) have nothing against children of African or Middle East refugees going to school with their children. Interestingly, this percentage was much lower in 2019, standing at 58%. It may be concluded that Serbia’s citizens have become more tolerant towards refugees, at least when it comes to education, and that they view refugee children as members of society who have the right to education. 

The survey results also show that Serbia’s citizens have grown more tolerant about working side by side with refugees – the number of respondents who had nothing against refugee co-workers grew from 39% in 2019 to 51% in 2021. One out of two pollees would have nothing against working together with African and Middle East refugees and would help them feel welcome. Another third would have nothing against working with refugees, but would not spend their time with them after work. Women and Belgraders are more willing to accept refugee co-workers.

The respondents’ views on the state’s migration policies are divided. Nearly a quarter of them approve Serbia’s policy on African and Middle East refugees, while 36% hold otherwise. In 2019, one out of three respondents approved of Serbia’s migration policy. Interestingly, the number of respondents who said that they were not fully familiar with the state policy on migrants fell substantially since 2019, from 30% to 16% in 2021.

Asked whether the parties’ position on migration was one of the factors they would take into account when deciding which one to vote for, 60% of the respondents replied ‘yes’. Interestingly, most of them are pensioners. The percentage of respondents who consider this an important issue increased by nearly 10% since 2019.

The public opinion survey on refugees/migrants in Serbia was conducted in cooperation with the Ipsos Strategic Marketing agency on a representative sample of 1,000 citizens in November 2021. The questionnaire comprised 10 questions of various types.  Most of the questions were Likert scale questions allowing the respondents to express how much they agree or disagree with a particular statement.

The entire 2021 survey is available in Serbian here.

The November 2019 survey is available in Serbian here.

Collection of Papers Marking the 70th Anniversary of the Adoption of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees – Seven Decades of Legal Protection of Refugees

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December 16, 2021

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The BCHR has the honour to present a new publication: Seven Decades of the Legal Protection of Refugees – Collection of Papers Marking the 70th Anniversary of the Adoption of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. 

The 70th anniversary of the adoption of one of the key international treaties – the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees 2021 – is marked this year. The Collection aims not only to mark the jubilee but also to emphasise the importance of this international treaty, the implementation of which has helped save millions of lives of people who had to or were forced to leave their countries of origin for justified reasons.

The BCHR also published the Collection to mark the first decade of its successful cooperation with the UN’s refugee agency – the UNHCR in Belgrade. Through our joint efforts over the past 10 years, we have helped improve the national asylum and refugee integration system, by providing free legal aid to refugees and asylum seekers in Serbia, organising expert seminars and conferences, and advocating improvements of the legislative framework and the implementation of accepted international refugee law standards.

We also wanted to highlight the importance of UNHCR’s efforts to protect refugees, displaced persons and asylum seekers and recall that this organisation has been extending them assistance in cooperation with other specialised UN agencies, international organisations and local partners for seventy years now. The Republic of Serbia is a signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. It has also ratified many other international treaties protecting human rights and particularly vulnerable categories of people. Serbia’s Constitution also devotes many articles to the protection and improvement of human rights. By adopting the Asylum Act in 2008, Serbia established the legal framework for the protection of refugees through the asylum procedure and provided them with the possibility of obtaining international protection and integrating in Serbia’s society.

The publication “Seven Decades of Legal Protection of Refugees” is available for download here in Serbian.

The abolishment of the decree that prevents research in the field of defence is the ‘Kodak moment’ of the state of democracy in Serbia

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December 14, 2021

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A group of civil society organisations and experts hereby points out that the way laws and by-laws are passed, amended and abolished shows a true picture of the catastrophic state of democracy in Serbia. The content, enactment and urgent abolishment of the decree stipulating that scientific and other research of importance for the country’s defense, conducted in cooperation with foreign entities, will require the approval of competent authorities, violates all principles of democracy, rule of law and freedom of expression.

The regulation in question – which the government non-transparently passed, only to later abolish it – would restrict academic freedoms and violate the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, the right to freedom of expression, the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Human and Civil Rights. It would make it completely impossible to conduct independent research in many different fields, from natural and social sciences to mathematics, to the research of ores and mineral resources. In the context of the current fight against dirty technologies in Serbia, the latter particularly raises doubts about the legislator’s intentions. The above means that the Government could deny consent to research conducted in cooperation with foreign entities in these areas if it arbitrarily assesses that such research would threaten the country’s defence. This would open up the possibility of abuse and prevention of free and independent research and public information.

The decree is not only contrary to Serbia’s declarative commitment to joining the EU; imposing restrictions on cooperation of domestic researchers with foreign entities would also seriously hinder international scientific and research cooperation of faculties, institutes and citizens’ associations from Serbia that are financed from foreign funds. This would actually set a barrier that would prevent the public from being able to control the state authorities’ possible abuses: researchers would not be able to interview whistleblowers who react to unlawful activities, while researches would be prevented even from conducting public opinion surveys – it would be enough for the competent authorities to refuse to give approval under the pretext that the activity would endanger national security.

This is the second time that the government is trying to pass this sort of a decree. The attempt from 2017 was prevented by the strong reaction of the public. In order to eliminate the danger of this or a similar regulation being passed again, we ask that the disputed Article 71a of the Defence Act – based on which yesterday’s Decree was passed and later abolished – be abolished. However, there are fears that the reasons for this latest attempt to abolish transparency and stifle freedom of speech are rooted in our country’s ever stronger alliances with regimes that are known for much more brutal confrontations with political opponents, independent media and non-governmental organisations.

Just like the recent examples of the adoption, abolishment and amendment of two laws that led to mass civil protests, this is another proof that there is no division of power and independence of institutions in Serbia. Now that it has been reaffirmed that not only the laws, but also the by-laws are the result of the will of the President of Serbia, and that the procedures defined by the Constitution are no more than ornaments that help simulate the rule of law, it is clear that civil society remains one of the few barriers to full autocracy. If similar attacks on the civil sector continue, even that last bulwark of democracy in Serbia will be destroyed. For this reason, we call on the public, the media, non-governmental organisations, the academic community, activists and human rights defenders to raise their voices against such intentions of the government.

Signed by:

  • ASTRA
  • Belgrade Centre for Security Policy
  • Belgrade Centre for Human Rights
  • CRTA
  • Civic initiatives
  • Committee of Lawyers for Human Rights
  • Drug Policy Network South East Europe
  • Victimology Society of Serbia