Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights-YUCOM issued a statement on Nov. 5, announcing the launching of a platform entitled “In Solidarity for the Rights of All,” which is to register all attacks and pressure on organizations and individuals in Serbia who, one way or another, defend human rights.

Katarina Golubović, President of YUCOM, pointed out that “the strength of the non-governmental sector is that it can listen to the needs of citizens and advise them, and later these problems of citizens are solved through public policies.”  For many years now, NGOs have been participating in this way in building policies and institutions based on the needs of citizens, and we are on the list of the state as associates who are the voice of citizens. 

The Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights (Yucom) said in a report released on Tuesday that Serbian citizens over the age of 65 were discriminated during the state of emergency imposed at the start of coronavirus pandemic.

“You cannot choose which part of the legal system you want to respect”

The Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM) based in Belgrade, Katarina Golubović, explains that the restriction of movement is not in itself unconstitutional, but that it can become if it is assessed that it was imposed in such a way that it threatens the so-called absolute rights.

Serbian NGO Lawyers’ Committee For Human Rights (YUCOM) say they have also received similar reports.

“In a state of emergency it is possible to restrict individual human rights, however, if citizens are not adequately informed about their rights and obligations, we have a serious threat to the right to legal certainty,” Milena Vasic of YUCOM told KRIK.

For years, Mirjana Novokmet has tried to find out what happened to her first child back in 1978.

Novokmet, only 19-years-old at the time, was told at a Belgrade clinic that her baby boy was stillborn. She wasn’t allowed to see him, and she has not been able to determine with certainty why he died or where he is buried.

Serbian lawmakers have adopted a long-awaited law they say will shed light on the mystery of hundreds of missing babies more than 30 years ago, and offer compensation to parents where the fate of their child cannot be determined.

In the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of Serbian babies (some advocates say thousands) mysteriously vanished from hospitals and birth clinics with no explanation or proof of death.

While the debate on changes to the penal code focuses on the emotive issue of life sentences for child killers, the authorities are busy smuggling in a raft of other changes that will seriously limit the liberty of Serbia’s courts.

Two Serbian Radical Party politicians are refusing to travel to The Hague to face contempt-of-court proceedings after the UN court revoked its decision to allow a trial in Belgrade because witnesses said they feared for their safety.

A report from Serbia’s War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office reveals that over the past two years, it has mainly focused on smaller-scale crimes that were not committed by high-ranking officials, contrary to what the Belgrade authorities promised the EU.