The inaugural recipient of the newly established “Konstantin Obradović” prize for contribution to the advancement of a human rights culture is Predrag Koraksić – Corax, a cartoonist from Belgrade. (more…)

Terrorist attacks in southern Serbia are an expression of dangerous intentions to prove that the dictatorship in Serbia was better than democratic government. Everyone needs to understand that giving in to chauvinism, regardless of where it originates and where it is directed, in the end results in the degradation of one’s own human rights and the human rights of one’s own people. The Belgrade Center for Human Rights supports efforts to solve the ethnic conflict in Kosovo through dialogue between reasonable representative of the Serbs, Albanians and other people who live in Kosovo and Metohia, as well as those who have to return there. Therefore, besides people in power and politicians, non-governmental organizations have a considerable contribution to make to this dialogue. (more…)

On the 13^th of September the Federal Justice Ministry verbally warned members of CeSID (Centre for Free Elections and Democracy, Centar za Slobodne Izbore i Demokratiju in Serbian) that it was considering cancelling the legal registration of this non-governmental organisation, because of “violations of its mandate.” CeSID is led to conclude that its mistake was to publish the results of local elections in Serbia in 1996, that is to say, to make evident the drastic electoral fraud of past state and local elections. (more…)

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. (more…)

 Labelling as ‘traitors’ those who draw attention to other people’s errors is always easy. Following this logic, this ‘treason’ is greater and much more costly when the errors pointed out are those committed by a nation, or rather, by those who represent her and who err in the name and at the expense of her people. Mistakes which the Yugoslav Army ordered and carried out in Kosovo and Metohia cost the lives and property of thousands of people – women and children who were unarmed and did not belong to the separatist KLA. They too are citizens of this nation. The mistakes ordered as part of a misguided policy, and carried out by the army, are the reason the remaining Serbs and other Serbian citizens who are still in Kosovo continue to live in tragic circumstances. (more…)

Belgrade independent TV Studio B, Radio B2-92 and Radio Index seized by the police – Belgrade free media in total darkness.

At 2:30 a.m. on 17 May 2000, police forces broke into the premises of the Belgrade independent TV and radio station Studio B, seized the equipment and prevented further broadcasting. This had an immediate effect over the transmission of Radio Index and Radio B2-92, two other remaining independent radio stations in Belgrade. No warrant for such a violent break-in was presented to the staff present at the time. (more…)