Dear colleagues,

 

The Committee for human rights – Leskovac, south of Serbia is one of the oldest NGOs in Serbia dealing with free protection of human rights of  marginalized and vulnerable groups, police torture cases and courts and prisons  monitoring.

 

During 2007, as far as individual cases are concerned, and obstacles we faced, we want to point our that the president of the Committee for human rights, Leskovac, Dobrosav Nesic, and the lawyer of the Committee, Dragutin Vidosavljevic faced concrete threats to their lives, property and bodies as ordered by an oligarchy group that rules Leskovac’s administration of justice. This, we believe, happened because of the fact that they revealed and presented to the public and competent services in charge  the evidence about the existence of a juristic gang in Leskovac’s administration of justice which in control of the oligarchy group on the local and republican level. The information they got from a reliable source  about this case, they reported to the police and the police provided physical protection for a while in terms of surveillance on their homes.

 

In 2008, against the president of the Committee for human rights, the lawyer of the Committee and a journalist of the daily papers Blic, Milica Ivanovic, there has been a criminal proceeding K- no 317/07 by one of the persons who privatized Leskovac’s administration of justice, and against whom there is a criminal proceeding for 11 criminal charges as a consequence of the work of the oligarchy group. The reason for the criminal proceeding against Nesic, Vidosavljevic and Ivanovic lies in the fact they published the information of the existence of the oligarchy group and their methods of work.

 

As far as the practice of protection of human rights defenders and creating the surrounding for their work on the republican level in Serbia, there is no sensibility for this field since until today the law about NGOs has not been passed neither are there any regulations that create a positive environment for the work of human rights defenders.

There is a tendency, proved in practice, that the Republican authorities lead an organized and systematic approach to put into the second plan NGOs that were affirmed during a number of years of existence as human rights defenders, and to put into the first plan newly formed so-called NGOs close to the authorities which represent the  interest of certain political groups and these so-called NGOs are actually pro-governmental organizations working under the government’s surveillance. This leads to an absurd fact that the domestic authentic NGOs which, on the human rights protection have been working for a long period, are more recognized and their work more respected abroad than in Serbia.

As far as the second part is concerned and the involvement of the Republic of Serbia in the work of the Committee for human rights in Serbia we want to stress that the government of the Republic of Serbia not even with a single gesture has helped or by any other means, from April 2007 until April 2008, supported the work of the Committee. On the contrary, they are doing everything to suffocate or minimize the work of the Committee which is seen in the fact that from the means given to support legal help in Serbia through UNDP, the Committee for human rights – which has been working for more than 10 years in providing legal help to people whose human rights, acknowledged by the International instruments, are endangered or violated, and has concrete results in this field, has not been given a single dinar, while the means are given to virtual organizations.

Also, we want to point out that in this Serbia today, in the government, neither is there  conscience about the term of human rights defender, the core of this term, nor of the importance of our work on the implementation of the international norms of the humanitarian law in practice  and creating a real surrounding for affirmation of citizens of Serbia as a subject of law, in stead of the object of domination as they are now.

 

As far as the third part is concerned, we want to say that by  working analytically for years on the protection and affirmation of human rights acknowledged by the UN Declaration about human rights and the accompanying instruments, EU Convention on protection of human rights and basic freedoms  we concluded based on the evidence and concrete written proof there is a several-membered organized criminal gang in the administration of justice in Jablanica district. This gang has privatized the administration of justice and turned it into a market place on which they freely trade with human destinies and properties. We notified the president of the Supreme Court of Serbia – Vida Petrovic-Skero, Minister of Justice – Dusan Petrovic and republican public prosecutor but so far we have not received any replies. However, the criminal proceeding was started against one lawyer for 11 crimes, which, he could not have done without being helped by some judges. In this case the state suffered damage of at least 850.000 euros.

 

These show us that the government in Serbia do not value the work of our Committee on affirmation protection of human rights and, 8 years after the democratic changes in Serbia, do not see us as a cooperative and constructive factor.

 

Yours truly,

Dobrosav Nesic