HUMAN RIGHTS

11. 4. 2010. Within the activities of the Human Rights program, the Initiative is investigating the violations of human rights with a focus on national and religious minorities, supervising the implementation of transitional laws and organizing the education of the young on human rights.

The aim of these activities is strengthening the rule of law in Serbia. The initiative publicly points out the omissions in the implementation of laws and international conventions, reacts to incidents — violations of human rights — and publicly advocates the improvement of legislation and legislative practice.

Within this program, the Initiative maintains the Balkans Human Rights (BHR) web portal.

Investigating Violations of Human Rights

Special attention is given to violations of human rights of religious and national minorities. The investigators of the Initiative analyse the process of registration of religious communities, their relations with the state organs and the community, follow the incidents whose victims are the members of certain religious communities, as well as the reactions of the state to these incidents.

Some of the issues that the Initiative’s investigators deal with are practicing the right to use on’s name and native language, the right to education and information in the native language, practicing religion and the participation of minorities in politics. The focus of the investigation is the position of the Albanian community in Presevo and Bujanovac, as well as the Bosnians in Sandzak.

Monitoring the Implementation of Transitional Laws

The Initiative is monitoring the level of implementation of transitional laws, because in that way clear conclusions can be made about punishableness, i.e. impunity for violating human rights. Among other things, the Initiative supervises the implementation of the Law on information, Law on national councils of national minorities, Law on broadcasting, and the Law on prohibition of discrimination, in whose creation it was partially involved, being at the time one of the member organizations of the Coalition against discrimination.

In this way pressure is put on the state organs in order for some laws to be changed and amended by adequate solutions.

After every investigated and processed case of violations of human rights, the Initiative informs the public in Serbia on the gathered facts and legal actions taken. The aim is for the citizens to be adequately informed on violations of human rights, persons responsible for them, enforced sentences and other important data.

A special aspect of work for the Initiative’s Human Rights team is monitoring hate speech in printed and electronic media.

The first legally binding judgement by which a newspaper text represents hate speech was reached last year, after the Initiative had filed a suit against the former editor-in-chief of the “Glas javnosti” newspaper, Ivan Corbic. The sentence stated that the text “Boycott“, published in March 2006 in this newspaper, which calls to boycott of the Croatian company “Idea“ because “the Croatian boot is freely treading the Serbian soil, buying companies and opening stores“, represents hate speech.

The text was published as an alleged advertisement, signed by “Banished Serbs“, and it states that when shopping in “Idea“,“you give money to those who killed us and banished us from our homes“, and finally that those who shop in this store will be uder surveillance.

The process for the suit for hate speech filed by the Initiative against the Internet magazine New Serbian Political Thought is still in progress.

Education on Human Rights

The Initiative organizes education on basic premises of human rights and the methods for researching their violation, in order to strengthen the capacities and knowledge of the young, necessary for their active participation in building a society based on the rule of law.

In these lectures, the young can find out more about the basics of human rights and anti-discrimination, with a special focus on religious and national minorities, the history of the development of human rights, as well as legal solutions in this field in Serbia…

The young who are interested in researching violations of human rights can learn the basic methods of such research in the lectures organized by the Initiative.

Balkans Human Rights Portal (BHR)

The BHR portal (www.balkanshumanrights.org) is a unique database on human rights in the countries of the West Balkans, intended for lawyers, human rights activists and all citizens interested in the state of human rights in the region.

At this website, maintained by the regional network of the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, there are information, news, documents, reprts, publications, stipulations and court decisions on violations of human rights in the countries of the Western Balkans.

The portal was supported by the Civil Rights Defenders organization.