Human Rights Developments

Defending Human Rights

The Role of the International Community

Defending Human Rights

A number of well-established local human rights organizations were active in documenting abuses in Yugoslavia and campaigning against them. The Humanitarian Law Center, with offices in Belgrade and Prishtina, Kosovo, and the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia publicized violations against ethnic Albanians and Serbs alike, as well as against Roma. The Kosova Helsinki Committee and the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms focused their work on violations in Kosovo; the latter produced a vast amount of material on abuses by the police. The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) documented and publicized the ongoing problems faced by the independent media.

These organizations and others, such as the Center for Human Rights, the Belgrade Circle, and Women in Black, were generally allowed to function, although they were verbally threatened by the government, especially Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Vojislav Šešelj, who also heads the Radical Party. A number of local activists with the council in Kosovo, however, were harassed, detained, arrested, and beaten. One of them, Rexhep Bislimi, died in police custody in July from beatings he sustained while in detention.