The Belgrade Center for Human Rights protests against the decision by the Ministry of Internal Affairs station in Leskovac to remove without legal basis the Lesovac Human Rights Committee from the civic society registry. The law concerning civic societies and community organisations, which the MIA in Leskovac refers to in its decision, precisely stipulates the reasons for which a civic society’s activities can be banned. The Leskovac station of the MIA relies on some other reasons, which do not exist anywhere among these legal reasons, to support its decision. Neither the fact that the society’s president is facing criminal prosecution, nor the society’s alleged political activities, are reason enough to ban that society.
This kind of approach by the Ministry in Leskovac is, unfortunately, yet another in a series of arbitrary decisions where the law is misused against those of a different political opinion, especially against those who are committed to defending human rights and the freedoms of Serbia’s citizens.
