Key Recommendations

To the Government of Serbia

Publicly and unequivocally condemn all instances of ethnic violence and other offenses against minorities;
Investigate and, where necessary, take appropriate disciplinary or legal action against officials suspected of inciting, encouraging, or supporting ethnically motivated violence against people or property;
Expand the compensation law to allow for compensation in cases of criminal damage not arising from public protests;
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 (hate crimes). 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 is based on, among other grounds, the victim’s membership (or presumed membership) of an ethnic, religious or racial group.

Direct officers to take all appropriate preventive measures to protect individuals belonging to minority communities from attacks;
Direct officers to take all appropriate measures to protect the minority-owned property and business from attacks, as well as people;
Thoroughly investigate all violent acts directed against minorities, including destruction of property, in order to identify the perpetrators and where the evidence warrants bring criminal charges against them;
Reopen investigations into the 2008 acts of violence against minority-owned businesses which took place after Kosovo’s declaration of independence;
Closely collaborate with investigative judges, misdemeanor judges and prosecutors to ensure adequate follow up on misdemeanors and criminal cases involving minority victims.

Closely collaborate with each other and the police to ensure that misdemeanors and criminal cases involving minorities are adequately followed up on and the perpetrators identified and prosecuted.

Include the Serbian Government’s successes and failures in preventing ethnically motivated crimes and, where warranted, prosecuting individuals responsible for them, as a benchmark in the Stabilization and Association ratification Process and other European Union accession processes;
Support police reform in Serbia to better enable timely and coordinated responses to violence and public disorder, including by facilitating closer cooperation and exchange of best practices between EU national police forces and the Serbian police.

The OSCE Mission in Serbia should include monitoring trials of ethnically motivated crimes in its portfolio, and publish its findings;
Monitor incidents of violence against minorities and publish reports documenting them.

The Advisory Committee of the Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities should visit the areas of the anti-minority violence during its November 3-7, 2008 visit to Serbia. The Advisory Committee should consider issuing a speedy report and recommendations specifically on the investigation into the violence.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Human Rights Committee, and the Special Rapporteur on racism should use the next opportunity provided by their respective mandates to take up the issue of ethnically motivated violence in Serbia and make recommendations for steps the authorities should take to effectively address the problem;
The Human Rights Council should use the opportunity of the forthcoming Universal Periodic Review of Serbia to question the authorities about the problem of ethnically motivated violence and their response to it, and make recommendations for steps taken to effectively address it.

November 2008