(New York, May 14, 2003) The Serbian authorities are obstructing efforts by Human Rights Watch and other nongovernmental organizations to visit people arrested during the state of emergency, Human Rights Watch said today.
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After one month of promising Human Rights Watch unhindered access to detainees, the authorities now appear to have actually been doing their best to prevent such a visit from taking place. The UNHCHR-OSCE visit was a welcome step, but their findings suggest an urgent need for follow-up monitoring, which the government appears reluctant to allow.
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Representatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) were permitted to visit the detainees on April 14 and 15. However, no arrangements have been made for regular follow-up monitoring by these or any other international governmental or non-governmental body.
The UNHCHR-OSCE preliminary findings from the April visit, published May 13, include an assessment that “the cumulative and combined effects of the underlying illegality of extended periods of detention coupled with the substandard conditions of detention for many detainees amounts to degrading punishment or treatment” and that “during the visit, the Delegation heard allegations or saw indications of torture or ill-treatment during arrest concerning two detainees.”
“After one month of promising Human Rights Watch unhindered access to detainees, the authorities now appear to have actually been doing their best to prevent such a visit from taking place,” said Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of the Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch. “The UNHCHR-OSCE visit was a welcome step, but their findings suggest an urgent need for follow-up monitoring, which the government appears reluctant to allow.”
Serbia introduced the state of emergency on March 12, the day Prime Minister Djindjic was assassinated, and lifted it on April 22. Human Rights Watch has from the beginning of the state of emergency requested that independent observers visit the detainees, since the authorities have prohibited the detainees from having contact with lawyers and families for up to sixty days.
One thousand persons are still in detention on suspicion of involvement in the Djindjic murder or in organized crime. Only very recently have some of them for the first time been able to contact their lawyers.
On the afternoon of April 11, the government invited Human Rights Watch to visit the Belgrade Central Prison the next morning. Due to the unreasonably short notice, Human Rights Watch was unable to carry out the visit on the proposed date, but emphasized its interest in visiting the prison at the earliest convenient time.
The Ministry of Justice continued to assure Human Rights Watch that a visit would take place soon. The last such assurance was made on May 6, at a meeting in Belgrade between the Serbian Deputy Minister of Justice, Dusan Protic, and a Human Rights Watch delegation. On May 8, the Ministry informed Human Rights Watch that it set May 13 as the date for the visit.
On no occasion during the numerous written and telephone contacts, or during the May 6 meeting, did the representatives of the Ministry of Justice suggest that the visit would exclude private interviews with detainees regarding their treatment during the arrest and in custody, or that the ministry was not competent to authorize such a visit.
