
Newsletter # 11 On Attacks And Pressure Against Human Rights Defenders
NEWSLETTER #11 ON ATTACKS AND PRESSURE AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS The Solidarity for the Rights…
NEWSLETTER #11 ON ATTACKS AND PRESSURE AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS The Solidarity for the Rights…
On April 21, 2023, the president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights – YUCOM, Katarina Golubović, addressed at the 15th meeting of the EU-Serbia Joint Consultative Committee (JCC), held in Brussels.
As this platform enables representatives of the EU and civil society from Serbia to monitor the country’s accession negotiations and to discuss issues of common interest, the main topics of this 15th meeting were the current state of the accession process, as well as media freedom in Serbia.
Moreover, since YUCOM is a member of this platform, Katarina Golubović presented the current state of the rule of law in Serbia.
Katarina Golubović, the president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM), was among the key participants at the UPR Pre-Session events in Geneva this week. The event brought together human rights advocates and representatives of civil society organizations from Serbia to create a comprehensive report that evaluates the country’s progress in fulfilling the recommendations related to human rights. Mrs. Golubović played an instrumental role in this process, using the platform to highlight two critical issues that require urgent attention. Firstly, she emphasized the pressing need to strengthen judicial efficiency, which plays a fundamental role in protecting human rights and ensuring justice for all. Secondly, Mrs. Golubović drew attention to the significant challenges that human rights defenders in Serbia face every day, including threats, intimidation, and violence.
The National Convention on the European Union Working Group for Chapter 23 alarms the public that only 36 hours after the end of the public debate, the Government of the Republic of Serbia adopted five judicial laws proposals that had entered the parliamentary procedure on January 17, 2023. It has raised the question of the meaning of the public debate, the purpose of 5 meetings held with the expert public, as well as more than 50 attachments with comments submitted to the Ministry of Justice, that were practically impossible to consider within that short period of time.
Great technological leaps have made organizing public gatherings much easier while making them more vulnerable to government interference. The developing concept of online or hybrid assemblies – here regrouped under the definition of digitally-mediated assemblies – is now acknowledged by international and regional human rights standards. The importance of social media in organizing gatherings in Serbia was highlighted in the 2022 Freedom House report, which also noted frequent misinformation campaigns resembling the government’s official narrative. The report noted that the online streaming of environmental protests opposed to the construction of hydroelectric power plants helped the movement amass more than 100,000 followers on social media.
Following a gathering in Gračanica/Graçanicë, a diverse group of civil society organisations from Kosovo and Serbia have adopted the following joint statement calling for new constructive voices – voices that look to the future whilst retaining a keen eye on the past; voices that seek out partnerships and coalitions beyond the red lines that are supposed to define them; and voices that stand up publicly against divisive and derogatory rhetoric.
We invite you to a joint press conference of CSOs to be held on 20 December at 12.00 pm (noon) at the Press Center of the Journalists’ Association of Serbia (Knez Mihailova 6, Belgrade) regarding the published Draft Law on Internal Affairs and other accompanying laws.
On November 7, 2020, the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights – YUCOM launched the first interactive map of the attacksand pressures on human rights defenders in Serbia. For three years, obtained data on increasingly worse position of activists were included in relevant documents of international institutions such as the resolutions of the European Parliament, progress report of the European Commission for Serbia, the Joint Declaration of the Joint Consultative Committee of Civil Society between the EU and Serbia, and others. The third year of data collection has once again confirmed the negative trends regarding the position of human rights activists. Attacks have been more and more often recorded outside of Belgrade, which confirms the assumption that in previous years the public was not aware of a large number of incidents that occurred in the local communities due to the lack of media coverage from the field.
This study, Freedom of expression in the digital space: Assessment of prosecutorial and judicial practice, was developed with the support of the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) as part of its project ‘Protection of Freedom of Speech on the Internet’. This project aimed at helping to create an environment conducive to pluralism of information and diversity of opinion in Serbia’s cyberspace by researching a variety of forms in which freedom of speech is criminalised, providing free legal aid to users of social media and activists, and delivering training to strengthen the resilience of civil society organisations against constraints to freedom of expression online.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights YUCOM, together with partners Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) and Association People’s Parliament would like to cordially invite you to the conference in regard to the presentation of the third Report on Attacks on Human Rights Defenders in Serbia for 2022 in the hybrid event on December 15, 2022 at 12PM at the Saint Ten Hotel, 10 Svetog Save Street / online. The conference is organized with the support of the Delegation of the European Union to Serbia.