The election campaign is characterized by a large number of incidents to which the authorities haven’t reacted accordingly, as well the holding of public gatherings at places which the law clearly states are off limits, says Milan Antonijevic, president of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.
In a statement for the BETA agency Antonijevic said that YUCOM had been monitoring election rallies and election campaigns and that they have observed “a number of elections-related acts of violence across Serbia” to which “the authorities aren’t reacting appropriately”.
“I think that will be one of the takeaways from this election cycle: that there was a large number of cases that resulted in incidents and acts of violence which weren’t adequately looked into and to which there was no proper reaction from the authorities”, says Antonijevic.
He said that it remains to be seen in “if any of these cases will be resolved before the courts and if we will uncover who attacked activists of not just certain political parties but, as we see now, of all parties participating in the elections”.
In his words, it remains to be seen if “these attacks were or weren’t a part of an organized campaign”.
“We are monitoring the observation of freedom of assembly and gatherings as well as the manner in which they are organized. The first thing that falls into view is that the assembly organizers, often those from the ruling parties, haven’t read the Public Assembly Act which they’ve passed at the beginning of the year”, he said.
Antonijevic said that that’s why rallies are often organized at locations which are prohibited by the law, such as schools, day care centers, hospitals… and that constitutes “a direct violation of the law”.
“We pointed this out to the authorities and we haven’t received any replies and we are waiting to see how they will react to these violations in the coming period”, he said.
