Belgrade Centre for Human Rights today sent a letter to Nenad Bogdanovic, the mayor of Belgrade, regarding the protests against the proposed construction of community housing for the Roma families in Belgrade suburb Dr. Ivan Ribar.Dear Mayor Bogdanovic:
Belgrade Centre for Human Rights strongly supports the initiative of the city of Belgrade to erect new buildings in the New Belgrade and so provide its Roma citizens with decent living conditions. The Centre is deeply concerned about the discriminatory protests by some of the citizens of Belgrade who object to this action.
Every human being has a right to life in decent conditions and to a standard of life based on healthy life conditions of every individual and his or her family, including right to shelter, food, clothing, access to public sources of water, as well as access to educational, cultural, health, and social services. Likewise, every person has a right to a fair treatment, free of discrimination.
The city of Belgrade has finally decided to help its Roma citizens in enjoying their basic human rights. In a free democratic society, it is impermissible that racial prejudices of a group of people present an obstacle to legitimate efforts of state institutions to facilitate a policy geared toward fulfilling the state’s international obligations. We must not allow that this discriminatory conduct of a group of people once again postpones dealing with this problem that already has embarrassed Belgrade and Serbia.
The Centre would like to stress that it is not only the moral duty of the Belgrade officials to resist the pressures of those who cannot or would not recognize the compelling interests of promoting diversity and equality in this city. Indeed, this is also a legal obligation, based on the constitutional acts and international treaties ratified by our country, especially the UN Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, European Convention on Human Rights, and UN Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.
The outcome of the postponement or abandonment of this project is quite clear. In March of this year, the UN Committee for Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in L.R. v. Slovakia – a case with circumstances almost identical to those here – established that Slovakia was responsible for violating the prohibition of racial or ethnic discrimination, when the officials of a town in Slovakia bowed under the pressure by a part of the town’s population and terminated the construction of a housing project for a group of its Roma citizens. Both the citizens and the officials of Belgrade need to be aware that ducking before the discriminatory threats in this case would almost certainly cause a similar reaction of international legal institutions and bring a great harm to the reputation of Serbia and Belgrade.
Sincerely,
Prof. Dr. Vojin Dimitrijevic
Director
cc to Deputy Mayor, Ms. Radmila Hrustanovic
