It came recently to our attention that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe put on its agenda election of judges to the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Serbia set for 27 January 2015.
On behalf of NGOs Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights and Belgrade Center for Human Rights, we are writing to express consternation of the civil society in Serbia with candidates proposed for this high post and the non-transparent and discriminatory procedure for their selection.

Civil society organization Safe Pulse of Youth has presented within the project Coalition for Equality – STEP a new publication titled „On the other side of homophobia: Analysis of the life experiences of LGBT persons in Serbia and recommendations for lowering discrimination“.

Twenty people were interviewed in the course of preparing this publication, in order to attain the personal confessions of LGBT people. These confessions were then classified into three categories, in order to emphasize the numerous difficulties that LGBT people face in everyday life – in the family home, at school and at work.

Amnesty International is concerned about reports on the arrest and detention of nine Bulgarian nationals, a Slovak and a Finnish national by the Serbian authorities, in what appears to be attempts to prevent the holding of peaceful demonstrations.

The individuals, who had reportedly travelled to Serbia to participate in peaceful demonstrations against the Chinese authorities’ actions towards Falun Gong practitioners during a summit of leaders from Central Eastern Europe and China in the capital Belgrade, were taken from their hotels by police and detained.

Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights – YUCOM wants to invite you to the final annual conference “The Challenges of Free Legal Aid Providing and the Mechanisms for Combating Hate Crimes” which will be held in the Media Center Belgrade (Terazije 3, ​Big​ Hall, at the first floor) on Thursday, December 18, 2014 at 12 p.m.

The activities and results of YUCOM’s work on improving the protection of human rights in Serbia in 2014 will be presented at the conference. Taking into account this year’s focus on the issues relating to citizens’ access to justice, as well as problems and challenges in combating hate crimes, the panelists will present their experiences and challenges in legal representation in 2014, particularly in relation to ineffective response of the system in cases of injuries human rights.

The Hague Tribunal is releasing the Serbian ultra-nationalist Vojislav Seselj because he has cancer and his health is deteriorating, although his marathon trial is not yet over.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, on Thursday granted provisional release to Vojislav Seselj, who has been on trial for 11 years for war crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia during the 1990s.

The Center for Peacebuilding (KOFF) is happy to share the recently published KOFF-Essential on the Implementation of the Swiss Guidelines on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders. You can find it attached or on our website: www.swisspeace.ch/publications/essentials.html Please feel free to share it with anyone for whom it might be of interest.

In case you have not already done so, we would hereby like to invite you to register for the International Conference “The future belongs to us: LGBT rights on the road to the European Union” that will take place on September 12 and 13 in Belgrade, Hotel Metropol Palace .

Within the Conference, a cocktail in the Belgrade City Hall will also be organized, on Friday September 12, at 7 PM.

Read more about the Conference here.