Overly Lenient Sentence for Wartime Sexual Violence

Overly Lenient Sentence for Wartime Sexual Violence

Copy of Saopštenje - 9On 12 December 2024, the War Crimes Department of the Higher Court in Belgrade delivered a judgment finding Lazar Mutlak, a member of the “Podkamen” Company of the Territorial Defence Srpsko Goražde, guilty of committing a war crime against the civilian population – raping a Bosniak woman under the threat of a gun on 25 May 1992, in the village of Lozje (municipality of Goražde, Bosnia and Herzegovina). Mutlak was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment.

The Humanitarian Law Center considers that the sentence is overly lenient and that the court gave excessive weight to mitigating circumstances, especially given the nature of the sexual violence, which, as established, left lasting consequences for the victim. Although the court conducted the proceedings efficiently, with the main hearing starting on 13 April 2023, the verdict does not provide adequate satisfaction for the victim, who had waited for justice for over three decades.


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President honours erased on Human Rights Day

President honours erased on Human Rights Day

SloveniaTimesPresident Nataša Pirc Musar urged the government to fully tackle the worst human rights violation in Slovenia’s history as she honoured the erased, the thousands of people descending from other parts of the former Yugoslavia who were removed from Slovenia’s register of permanent residents in 1992.

The erased have been forced to become human rights advocates, having to resort to all domestic and international mechanisms in the fight for the respect of human rights, the president said as she presented them with the award she introduced last year to acknowledge work for human rights.


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Position of victims of sexual violence in court proceedings in the Republic of Serbia

Position of victims of sexual violence in court proceedings in the Republic of Serbia

Polozaj-zrtava-seksualnog-nasilja-u-sudskim-postupcima-enAnalyses and recommendations for amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code and the Law on Civil Procedure of the Republic of Serbia

Through decades of monitoring and analyzing war crimes trials in Serbia, the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) has identified shortcomings in the normative framework concerning the support and protection of witnesses and victims in criminal proceedings, particularly in cases involving sexual violence in wartime. These gaps and inadequate legal solutions, as well as certain inconsistencies with international standards, were confirmed through a consultative process conducted by the HLC to examine the rights and position of sexual violence victims in judicial proceedings.


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Kosovo Takes Careful Steps Towards Remembrance of Wartime Rape

Kosovo Takes Careful Steps Towards Remembrance of Wartime Rape
BalkanInsight_logoA culture of silence exists in Kosovo around the issue of wartime rape, but initiatives like the newly-opened War Rape Survivors Museum in Pristina are trying to make sure the crime and those who suffered are remembered.

S.N. perches on the edge of a sofa, her lips trembling as she recalls the events of April 21, 1999, when she was among some 300 women and children rounded up by Serb forces in a school in the Kosovo mountain village of Dragaqine/Dragacin. The words do not come easily.


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