The Coalition against Discrimination demands that all state bodies and independent institutions take all legal measures against those who resort to violence and discriminate against citizens. At the same time, we believe that the state authorities, which put the citizens of Serbia at risk by their actions or failures to take necessary measures, must bear full responsibility for their actions. Culpability and accountability must become the rule rather than the exception in this country.

After the 5 October 2000 changes, the legislative framework has been improved and a number of international conventions on human rights have been ratified. A certain progress has been made regarding the observance of human rights. However, after the adoption of the Constitution of Serbia in 2006, and in particular in the last three years, this trend regarding the respect and protection of human rights has slowed down, as shown by the attempts to obstruct the adoption of the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination in 2009 and to ban the Pride Parade the same year. The murder of Brice Taton was the culmination of violence committed by private persons, while the police and the judiciary did nothing in this case to prevent it. For that reason, citizens believe that various groups of thugs (hooligans at football matches, political extremists belonging to fascist, Nazi and similar groups) are stronger than the state. The Constitutional Court of Serbia even missed an opportunity to ban some of these groups.

The latest act of violence in which a citizen of Serbia was wounded with a knife followed after the explicit ban of 2011 Pride Parade, the most brutal act of oppression of human rights, which is justified with the risk of incidents according to the North-African scenario. However, the same incident avoiding criterion was not accepted by the Minister of Police a few days ago in the discussion about the obligation to have prevented the injury of minors in Jagodina when an antiterrorist police helicopter caused the collapsing of billboards. The day before the event, on Sunday 13th November, in the same town the rights of children and their parents were grossly violated when the highest representatives of the local community requested from them to attend the arrival of the Patriarch of Serbian Orthodox Church.

The Coalition against Discrimination believes that a number of incidents that have occurred in the past 3 years, the ignorant attitude of the authorities and a mild or no reaction of independent institutions to these incidents have proven that respect for basic human rights, especially the rights of minority groups, is at the significantly lower level than a few years ago. The Serbian authorities, whose duty is to ensure respect for and protection of human rights defined in the Constitution and numerous international documents,  bear full responsibility for this situation.

The Coalition against Discrimination includes: Center for Advanced Legal Studies, Civil Rights Defenders, CHRIS – Network of the Committees for Human Rights in Serbia, Gayten LGBT, Labris - Lesbian Human Rights Organisation, Praxis, Regional Center for Minorities, Association of Students with Disabilities.