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The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia and
the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights held the regional conference
entitled “Freedom of Assembly in the Western Balkans“ on January 25,
2016 in Belgrade. Lawyers, activists, human rights defenders and other
representatives of civil society organizations from Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia
participated in the conference.
The participants touched upon several complex issues,
including the legislative framework of the freedom of assembly in the
countries of the Western Balkans, local legal regulations on
notification, authorization, preparation and organization of public
gatherings, limitations to the freedom of assembly and practical
problems in the organization of public events, civic protests and the
role of state institutions and police in securing the right to assembly.
Several trends and features are common to all the
Western Balkans countries. Namely, the civil society and citizens
perceive the freedom of assembly both as an important democratic concept
and as an instrument for expressing civic protest or a certain stance.
At the same time state institutions, ruling parties and political elites
interpret this right either as a means for achieving their political
goals or as a threat to the national security or to the security of the
ruling elites.
The existing legal framework regulating the freedom of
assembly is mainly limited, controversial, discriminatory and primarily
focused on various restrictions of this basic freedom, which leaves
enough space for misuse. New laws on public assembly adopted in some
regional states aim at improving the situation; however, they often
leave the basic problems unsolved. Moreover, in almost all regional
states the police play a major role in the process of
notification/authorization of public gatherings, which often results in
violations of the right to assembly. The countries in the region also
face the problem of police brutality and the excessive use of force
against participants of public gatherings. Another key issue is the
selective acknowledgement of the right to assembly, which means that
some social groups face discrimination when they attempt to enjoy this
right (for instance representatives of the opposition, ethnic
minorities, LGBT persons, etc.). The participants of the regional
conference also mentioned the considerable role of the international
institutions and the international community in promoting the state
institutions’ more dynamic conduction of reforms and wider respect for
human rights, including the freedom of assembly.
The conference was organized with the support of the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the Foundation to Promote
Open Society (OSF).
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