As every July for the past ten years, the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights takes the opportunity to recall the anniversary of the crime in Srebrenica, when nearly 8,000 people were killed. Ten years have passed since 11 July 1995, the day which marked the beginning of one of the most horrendous weeks in the recent history of the Balkans, the former Yugoslavia and Serbia. There is no doubt that it is the families and friends of the victims of the Srebrenica tragedy who have suffered the most during those days and all the days and nights since. (more…)

The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights vehemently condemns yesterday’s decision by the Kikinda Mayor to proclaim Humanitarian Law Centre Director Nataša Kandić, a sincere and longstanding champion of truth and protection of victims of human rights violations, a persona non grata. The fact that Kikinda Mayor Branislav Blažić is a senior official of the Serbian Radical Party testifies of the motives behind such a move, which perfectly fits in that party’s overall campaign against Nataša Kandić, recently revived by SRS threats to lodge a criminal complaint against her. (more…)

The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights strongly condemns  the Parent Council of the Belgrade Elementary School “Marko Orešković” for halting the adaptation of four classrooms to enable access to children with physical disabilities. The parents’ opposition to the inclusion project and their threats to transfer their children to another schools if children with disabilities are allowed to attend classes testify of the moral misery reigning in our society. This is not the first time such deviant “parental concern” has been expressed in Serbia’s elementary schools. (more…)

A video recording of a horrible crime – the execution of a group of Srebrenica Bosniaks, including adolescents, in July 1995 – was shown in ICTY on Wednesday, 1 June, during the testimony of Serbian police general Obrad Stevanovic in the Milosevic trial. It is difficult to conclude what is more devastating: the massacre and inhuman conduct of the killers, awareness that such crimes were committed in our name, or the irrational refusal by part of the Serbian public to comprehend the proportions of the crime and face the truth. The silence of the country’s officials and the hypocricy of some media, which are doing their best to minimise the significance of this piece of evidence, by ignoring or relativising it, or suggesting it is ‘unreliable’, are beyond comprehension. (more…)

For the past ten days, the media in Serbia have been vying over which would attack former Foreign Minister Goran Svilanović more and with less taste. All those, who had been politically and economically destroying this country during the Milosevic era, again feel they have the right to slander and insult a politician who spoke his mind, who does not wish to delude the citizens of our country. We had thought that the times of horrendous hate speech against rational, civilised and responsible people had passed. We had hoped the right to freedom of thought would be guaranteed to everyone, especially the politicians who led our state to membership in international institutions. (more…)

The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights is shocked by the announcement of the panel discussion the student organisation Nomokanon is organising at the Belgrade University Law Faculty on 19 April. The posters pasted across Belgrade advertise the panel under the following headlines »Truth about Srebrenica on the Occasion of the Tenth Anniversary of the Liberation of Srebrenica«! It is scandalous and impermissible to organise a gathering celebrating the anniversary of the horrendous crime committed in Srebrenica in this country, especially in an academic institution the Law Faculty should be. The fact that nearly eight thousand people were killed in Srebrenica can no longer be contested. It was proven also at a trial of those accused of this war crime. The Republika Srpska authorities came to the identical conclusion in their report on the crime. (more…)