Balkans: rights are the key to the European future

(Beirut) – Hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and migrants faced significant difficulties in 2015 while following a key transit route in the Western Balkans, Human Rights Watch said today in his report. Global Report 2016.

Problems along the way Croatia, Serbia, SloveniaAnd Macedonia that asylum seekers and migrants faced included slow registration procedures and inadequate reception conditions exacerbated by cascading border closures. Governments in the Western Balkans should focus on improving human rights protections, including for asylum seekers, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch has documented human rights concerns in Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo during the year 2015 for the Global Report 2016. Concerns in Croatia and the impact of the European refugee crisis along the Western Balkan route are included in a chapter on European Union.

Other human rights problems in the Western Balkans include limited prosecutions in domestic courts for war crimes committed during the breakup of Yugoslavia, hostile media climate, persistent discrimination against Roma, as well as harassment and intimidation of LGBT individuals and groups.

Limited progress has been made on accountability for war crimes in the national courts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Kosovo. War crimes prosecutors in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are underfunded and lack sufficient capacity to handle cases. Although Kosovo’s parliament finally passed a law creating a special court to try serious crimes during and after the 1999 war, the court is not yet operational due to delays in reaching a headquarters agreement with the Netherlands.

Twenty years after the Dayton peace agreement in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the country remains divided and prey to political sclerosis. No progress has been made in implementing two European Court of Human Rights rulings, from 2009 and 2013, demanding that Bosnia and Herzegovina amend its discriminatory constitution, which denies members of minority groups the possibility of running for high political office.

Discrimination against Roma in access to health care and education persisted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Kosovo, and Roma remained vulnerable to forced and arbitrary evictions. Progress in implementing strategies in Kosovo aimed at integrating Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian minority groups and helping those forced to return there from Western Europe has been limited. LGBT groups continued to face harassment and intimidation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Kosovo.