Amnesty Highlights Continued Rights Failings In Balkans

Amnesty International’s annual report, published on Thursday, shone a light on human rights violations in all Balkan countries and pointed especially to a lack of will to deal with war crimes.

The report presented the state of human rights during 2017 in 159 countries and territories.

“As we enter 2018, the year in which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights turns 70, it is abundantly clear that none of us can take any of our human rights for granted … The battle for human rights is never decisively won in any place or at any point in time,” it said.

Albania:

The report noted that in May 2017, a British court found that hundreds of lesbian and gay people, trafficking victims and domestic violence survivors may have been wrongly deported to Albania since 2011 “because UK courts had relied on incorrect guidance”.

It added that impunity persisted for past killings and enforced disappearances and underlined that measures protecting women from domestic violence were inadequately implemented.

“Women and children were trafficked for forced prostitution and labour,” it said.

Albania’s path to EU membership was being hindered by its slow progress in combating corruption and organized crime, the report said.

On media freedom, Amnesty noted that physical attacks against investigative journalists in Albania were “perpetrated by organized criminals, or owners of private companies”.

Bosnia and Herzegovina:

“Minorities continued to face widespread discrimination. Threats and attacks against journalists and media freedom persisted. Access to justice and reparations for civilian victims of war remained limited,” the report said.

Social exclusion and discrimination, in particular of Roma, LGBT people, and of people with disabilities, remained widespread, it added.

The report said that a pattern of threats, political pressure and attacks against journalists had continued.

“The domestic prosecution of war crimes remained slow, with a backlog of several hundred cases pending before various courts at the end of the year. Despite recent progress, the prosecutions continued to suffer from lack of capacity and resources, ineffective case-management and persistent political obstruction,” it noted.

The report also said that although over 75 per cent of missing persons from the 1992-5 war in Bosnia had been exhumed and identified, 8,000 people remain missing in connection with the conflict.

“The process of exhumations continued to encounter significant challenges, including reduced funding and limited expertise,” Amnesty pointed out, and added that the country’s Law on Missing Persons remained unimplemented, with the Fund for Families of the Missing still awaiting dedicated resources.

Bulgaria:

The report highlighted that summary detentions, pushbacks and abuses at the border had continued, and that necessary services were not provided to migrants and refugees, including unaccompanied children.

“A climate of xenophobia and intolerance sharply intensified. Roma continued to be at risk of pervasive discrimination,” it added.

Amnesty warned also that although Bulgaria was committed to accepting 1,302 asylum-seekers from Greece and Italy under the EU emergency relocation scheme, it had only resettled 50 people from Greece by the end of the year.

“It did not receive any Syrian refugees from Turkey under the EU-Turkey ‘one-for-one’ resettlement deal although it had originally committed to accept 100 people under the scheme,” it noted.

The report also pointed to a continuation of a “pattern of threats, political pressure and attacks against journalists”.

“A significant portion of the media remained under the tight control of political parties and local oligarchs,” it added.

Croatia:

The report said that discrimination against ethnic and sexual minorities persisted in Croatia, while refugees and migrants entering irregularly were returned without access to an effective asylum process.

“Croatia accepted less than a 10th of the refugees and asylum-seekers it had committed to relocate and resettle under EU schemes,” it said.

The report also underlined that access to abortion “remained restricted” in Croatia.

“Individual doctors, and in some cases health care institutions, continued to refuse abortions on grounds of conscience, forcing women to undergo clandestine and unsafe abortions,” it read.

It also added that of the over 6,000 people who went missing during the 1991-1995 war, the fate and whereabouts of more than 1,500 remained unclarified.

“The International Commission on Missing Persons reported that Croatia failed to make significant steps towards fulfilling the rights to truth, justice and reparation for victims, including by failing to account for over 900 unidentified mortal remains in its mortuaries,” it said.

The report pointed out that Croatia was committed to accepting 1,600 refugees and asylum-seekers under the EU resettlement and relocation schemes by the end of the year.

“By mid-November, fewer than 100 people had been relocated, and none had been resettled,” it said.

Kosovo:

“The absence of any agreement on mutual legal assistance between Kosovo and Serbia hampered the prosecution of Serbs suspected of crimes under international law during the 1998-99 armed conflicts, including conflict-related sexual violence,” the report said.

It recalled that hundreds of unresolved case files were due to be transferred by June 2018 to Kosovo’s Special Prosecution Office.

“Prosecutors, NGOs and survivors of CRSV [conflict-related sexual violence] were concerned that testimonies, known to have been gathered after the armed conflict by the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), had not been promptly or adequately investigated,” the report added.

Amnesty warned that little progress was being made in locating people still missing from the armed conflict of the late-1990s and its aftermath, and pointed out that some 1,658 people were still missing.

“In May, the Kosovo Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims, authorized to monitor the treatment of the people in detention, was refused access to prison hospitals after these had been transferred to the Ministry of Health,” the report said.

It added that some detainees were held for long periods before and during trial – while one of them “was detained for over 31 months”.

On freedom of the media, the report noted that the Association of Kosovo Journalists reported an increase in attacks, especially on investigative journalists.

Macedonia:

“Impunity for war crimes persisted. Asylum-seekers and migrants were unlawfully detained. A court judgment provided for legal gender recognition for transgender people,” the report said.

The report also said that “impunity for war crimes, including enforced disappearances and abductions, persisted”.

It added that asylum seekers and migrants, including unaccompanied children, were “unlawfully detained at the Reception Centre for Foreigners as witnesses in criminal proceedings against smugglers, for an average of two weeks, after which they were released”.

Montenegro:

The report highlighted that past murders and attacks on journalists and media workers remained unresolved.

It added that the country’s Constitutional Court found that investigations into alleged torture and ill treatment had “failed to meet international standards”.

“The funding of NGOs was threatened and human rights defenders were subjected to smear campaigns by media supportive of the government,” it noted.

Amnesty also said that civil society members of a commission charged with monitoring investigations into violence against journalists “continued to be denied security clearance to classified documents”.

The report noted the poor condition in which almost 1,000 Roma and Egyptian refugees who fled Kosovo in 1999 are housed at Konik, a camp outside the capital, Podgorica.

It is said that these refugees are still awaiting resettlement to adequate EU-funded apartments.

Romania:

The report recalled that laws extending pardons and amnesties for corruption and official misconduct were put forward in parliament, sparking protests across the country.

It added that European and international institutions criticized overcrowding in prisons and inadequate detention conditions.

Romania is also criticized for continued discrimination against Roma. “Living conditions in social care and psychiatric institutions for people with disabilities remained extremely precarious,” it added.

Serbia:

“Former Serbian military leaders released after serving sentences handed down by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, were increasingly afforded influential positions,” the report noted.

It also recalled that, in December, despite a UN Committee against Torture ruling against his extradition, Serbia had returned a Kurdish activist, Cevdet Ayaz, to certain imprisonment in Turkey.

The report noted that, in May, Snezana Stanojkovic was elected Chief War Crimes Prosecutor.

“Only three prosecutions, all resulting in acquittals, were concluded at the Special War Crimes Chamber,” it said.

“There was no progress towards the prosecution of those responsible for the transfer and subsequent burial of bodies of Kosovo Albanians in Serbia in 1999,” it added.

The report noted attacks on NGOs that advocate human rights, and attacks on journalists.

It added that the Serbian authorities also failed to protect LGBTI individuals and organizations from discrimination, threats and physical attacks.

Amnesty also noted that Roma families in Belgrade continued to live in informal settlements.

“Refugees and migrants were trapped in the country; those trying to enter the EU via Hungary and Croatia were repeatedly and violently returned to Serbia,” it said.