ZAGREB, Feb 26 (Hina) - In 2003 Serbia saw problems with the illegal treatment of citizens following the March assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and lack of cooperation with the U.N. war crimes tribunal, reads the 2003
State Department report on human rights practices in the world, released on Wednesday.
ZAGREB, Feb 26 (Hina) - In 2003 Serbia saw problems with the illegal
treatment of citizens following the March assassination of Prime
Minister Zoran Djindjic and lack of cooperation with the U.N. war
crimes tribunal, reads the 2003 State Department report on human
rights practices in the world, released on Wednesday.#L#
The State Department says that the Serbian government generally
respected the human rights of its citizens, but that there were
problems in some areas and that they were aggravated by the March
assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and the subsequent
42-hour state of emergency.
The report also notes the beating of prisoners and cases of
intimidation of citizens and arbitrary arrests and detention.
Serbia and Montenegro cooperated with the U.N. war crimes tribunal,
handed over indictees, submitted documents and granted permits for
state officials to testify before the tribunal, however, the tribunal
remains dissatisfied with the overall cooperation, primarily because
it believes that its key indictee, Ratko Mladic, is hiding in Serbia,
says the report.
Also noted in the report are serious cases of violence and
discrimination against national minorities, especially in southern
Serbia, where there is a large Albanian community. The report also
notes attacks on non-Serb Orthodox believers and churches, as well as
cases of desecration of Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Lutheran
cemeteries.
In the part of the report referring to Kosovo, the State Department
says that the U.N. administration in Kosovo (UNMIK) and the temporary
Kosovo government respected human rights in general, although with
serious problems in some areas. Those included politically motivated
murders, cases of kidnapping, and the resumption of ethnic tensions
and violence.
The report warns about the serious problem of freedom of movement for
Kosovo Serbs, of whom some 100,000 have remained in Kosovo, mostly in
the north of the province or in UNMIK-protected enclaves.
Violence against Kosovo Serbs is still present, with ethnically
motivated killings, whose perpetrators have not been arrested, says
the State Department, adding that of some 170,000 Serb refugees only
few have returned to their homes because of insufficient security,
freedom of movement and employment opportunities.
(Hina) rml sb