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To the Government of Serbia:
Officials at the highest levels should publicly and unequivocally
condemn all instances of ethnic violence and other offenses against minorities;
Disciplinary or legal action as appropriate should be taken
against officials who incite, encourage, or support ethnically motivated
violence;
To ensure the impartiality of police investigations, officials
should not reject ethnic motivation behind incidents before a full
investigation of an alleged offense is completed.
Serbia should consider legislation that would allow for the
imposition of greater sentences for ethnically aggravated forms of offenses
against the person, property, public order, and similar offenses. The
ethnically aggravated form of an offense would apply where there is evidence of
either a) clear ethnic motivation on the part of the perpetrator in the
commission of the offense or b) the demonstration of hostility during the
commission of the offense based on, among other grounds, the victim’s
membership (or presumed membership) of an ethnic, religious, or racial group.
Legislation allowing for harsher punishment for ethnically
aggravated forms of offenses should prescribe higher maximums for hate crimes
than for the similar crimes in which the underlying acts are unrelated to
victim’s ethnicity, race and religion;
The Serbian Ministry of Justice should monitor the application in
the courts of any new provisions penalizing ethnically aggravated forms of offenses,
as well as article 134 of the Basic Penal Code (incitement to ethnic, racial
and religious hatred), to ensure that any prosecutions brought under those
provisions are fully consistent with international fair trial standards and
human rights law.
The Role of the Police
The police force should take all appropriate preventive measures
to protect minority communities from attacks and not rely solely on stopping
violence already underway;
The police should investigate thoroughly all reports and
incidents of ethnic violence and refrain from making public statements that
minimize their significance;
The government of Serbia should intensify efforts to ensure
greater participation of minorities in the police in Vojvodina.
To the Local Government in Novi Sad
Fulfill the promise of the Novi Sad government last year to
reimburse property owners whose property was damaged in the March 2004
violence.
To the European Union:
Include the Serbian government’s success in preventing and
holding accountable persons responsible for ethnically motivated crimes in
Vojvodina and other parts of Serbia as a benchmark in the Stabilisation and
Association process;
Make clear public statements that a multi-ethnic Vojvodina and Serbia in which the rights of all inhabitants are respected is one of the principal objectives of
the international community in the territory of former Yugoslavia.
To the Council of Europe:
Press the government of Serbia to uphold the standards from the
Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, to which Serbia and Montenegro has acceded;
Strengthen the focus of the Council of Europe Parliamentary
Assembly monitoring procedure on Serbia and Montenegro on improvement of the
functioning of the judiciary in relation to ethnically motivated crimes;
The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance should
carry out a country visit to Serbia and Montenegro and make violence against
minorities a special focus of their work.
To the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE):
The Democratization Unit of the OSCE Mission in Serbia and Montenegro should include monitoring of trials of ethnically motivated crimes in its
portfolio;
The OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities should carry
out a follow-up visit to Serbia and Montenegro to assess the progress achieved
in protecting national minorities, with a particular focus on the government’s
response to the incidents of ethnic violence in 2004 and 2005.
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