“Rate Your Rights”

The UNDP, the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights and media company B92 launched the “Rate Your Rights” campaign to involve the citizens in rating the implementation of the Human Rights Council recommendations to the Republic of Serbia in the first round of the Universal Periodic Review. A questionnaire was published on the B92 website, one of the most popular news portals in Serbia. Over 3000 replies to the 18 questions in the questionnaire were posted between 9 June and 15 September 2012. The number of replies and their content demonstrate major public interest in the state’s attitude toward individuals, vulnerable groups and the general state the Serbian society is in. The respondents did not give only general assessments, but shared their personal experiences as well. The reforms Serbia has been under the obligation to undertake in specific areas of human rights under the recommendations can be qualified as unsuccessful in view of the large number of negative replies. The replies may lead to the conclusion that most citizens in Serbia are of the view that the state has a negative attitude towards human rights and that much has yet to be done to advance human rights and implement the laws protecting human rights, strengthen the institutions that will ensure that they are actually respected and organise campaigns raising awareness among the citizens of the rights that belong to them. The extent to which the general views voiced by the citizens in their replies to the questions reflect the general opinion of Serbia’s citizens cannot be established precisely, but the fact that the questionnaire was accessible/visible to a large number of people undoubtedly adds to its representativeness.

All the replies are available in Serbian at http://www.b92.net/info/un