Stockholm, Washington, Utrecht
20 February 2008
Dear Sirs,
We would like to express our deepest concern about the latest threats on human rights defenders in Serbia, as well as the failure to arrest and bring to justice attackers on journalists, artists, and others who express different opinions on issues facing Serbia today.
I personally had a chance to observe the events happening in front of the Turkish Embassy before, during, and after the Serbian protest against the independence of Kosovo on 21 February 2008.
The International Bar Association (IBA)’s Human Rights Institute has expressed grave concern for the safety of prominent human rights defenders in Serbia, following comments made by political party leaders inciting action against them.
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The radicalization of the Serbian political scene since Kosovo’s declaration of independence on Sunday has put the country’s few, though dedicated, human rights defenders and liberally-oriented politicians at risk. Not since 1999, when Serbian forces under Slobodan Milosevic’s direction were ethnically cleansing Kosovo of its Albanian inhabitants, have Serbian human rights defenders been so vulnerable.
Amnesty International is calling on the Serbian authorities and specifically Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica and President Boris Tadić to urgently condemn attacks on human rights activists and on ethnic minorities in the country.
I am aware that I do not have support in Serbia for what I do and that there are a lot of people within the state insititutions who are attacking me in order to draw public attention away from the misdeeds they committed in the past. Vojislav Šešelj and his ultra-nationalist party, Serb Radical Party [SRS] are among these people. The trial of Vojislav Šešelj for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, began in The Hague in December 2007. During the main hearing, held in January 2008, defendant Šešelj started revealing information concerning my privacy and confidential contacts with witnesses of war crimes.
Members of the Advisory Committee on the Archives of the UN Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (ACA) visited Belgrade at the end of December 2007 to discuss the future of the Hague Tribunal archive with representatives of the authorities and NGOs.
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A Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) attorney filed three compensation lawsuits against the Republic of Serbia on behalf of Mušan Džebo, Enes Bogilović, Ahmet Kamenica, Mujo Vatreša, Selim Nuhanović, Halil Durmišević, Senad Jusufbegović, Fehim Dudević, and Fadil Čardaković [all from Žepa], because of the state’s responsibility for their detention in Šljivovica and Mitrovo Polje camps during the summer of 1995 and torture committed against them by members of the Serbian Ministry of Interior. The compensation lawsuits were filed on 23 November and 20 December as part of the support programme to victims of past human rights violation in exercising their right to reparation.