The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights presented the new analysis “Compliance with the non-refoulement principle in extradition procedures in Serbia from 2017 to 2021”.
The presentation of the analysis was held on Monday, April 24, 2023, in the Media Center in Belgrade, with opening speech by Ms. Sonja Tošković, BCHR Executive Director and Ms. Ivana Ranđelović, Head of the Program Unit for Europe and the MENA region in Civil Rights Defenders. The analysis was presented in detail by its authors: Vladića Ilić, Head of BCHR Legal Team, Sanja Radivojević, BCHR Senior Legal Adviser and Petar Vidosavljević, BCHR Legal Adviser.
Serbia was declared responsible by the UN Committee against Torture for violating the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatments or Punishments due to the
extradition of Kurdish political activist Cevdet Ayaz to Turkey on December 25, 2017.
Although this case attracted a lot of public attention, it did not remain alone, considering that in January 2022, an even more dramatic example of human rights violations occurred in the execution process, when Serbia extradited to the Kingdom of Bahrain a citizen of that country despite the provisional measure the European Court of Human Rights imposed regarding this extradition procedure.
The aforementioned two cases were the reason for the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights to prompted investigation on the practice of the higher courts and the Ministry of Justice in extradition proceedings in the last five years, i.e. from the beginning of 2017 to the end of 2021, and to find out whether there were any other cases – those that did not reach the general public – where foreign nationals were extradited despite serious risks that they would face persecution, death penalty, torture, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, or other forms of flagrant denial of justice in their countries of origin.
The analysis “Compliance with the non-refoulement principle in extradition procedures in Serbia from 2017 to 2021” in English is available HERE.
Video from the presentation of the analysis is here:
