Serbia

OSCE Mission to Serbia responds to Romani NGOs about alleged radicalization, references British Council report

21.7.2018 10:48 On 20 July 2018 the OSCE Mission to Serbia responded to the letter sent by the international Roma Nation Movement regarding allegations of radicalization among Romani community members in Serbia. The letter expressed concern that a recent consultancy post had been advertised in such a way as to stigmatize the Roma.

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Romani NGOs around Europe ask why the OSCE is researching alleged radicalization of their communities in Serbia

18.7.2018 15:16 Representatives of Romani organizations from around Europe have contacted the head of the OSCE's mission to Serbia to express their alarm over the 10 July 2018 announcement of a search for a “Researcher on Radicalization among the Roma Community in Serbia”. The Romani representatives say they are deeply concerned about the growing insecurity of Roma in Europe as a result of extremist antigypsyism in a number of OSCE participating States.


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PHOTO GALLERY: Refugees living in abandoned warehouses in Belgrade, Serbia

1.3.2017 7:13 In several abandoned warehouses near the main train station in Belgrade, Serbia, roughly 1 200 refugees, predominantly from Afghanistan and Pakistan, are surviving in shocking hygienic conditions and low temperatures. Nighttime temperatures there at the end of January were around 15 degrees below zero Celsius.  full story

Slovenian PM: Refugee crisis could be the beginning of the end of the EU

26.10.2015 9:03 Several Prime Ministers from EU Member States used unusually direct, harsh words, including against the European Commission, when arriving in Brussels yesterday for a negotiation about migration routes to the EU through the Balkans. The mini-summit of high representatives of countries from the region, where some are EU Member States and some are not, was convened last week by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker with the aim of quickly agreeing on concrete measures for addressing the crisis situation of tens of thousands of refugees passing through the area in an attempt to reach Western Europe before winter sets in.  full story

Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015 holds its closing meeting in Sarajevo

11.9.2015 2:49 On 10 and 11 September the 28th and final International Steering Committee Meeting of the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015 is being held in Sarajevo. The meeting is being attended by the national coordinators of the countries involved as well as many collaborating individuals and institutional partners and aims to draw attention to the lessons learned and successes achieved during the past decade.  full story

First RomaVersitas Summit now underway and broadcast online

4.9.2015 23:50 The Roma Education Fund's RomaVersitas summit began yesterday in Budapest and ends tomorrow. Approximately 60 Romaversitas students from Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova and Serbia, countries where REF supports RomaVersitas Student Centers, are participating in the three-day summit.  full story

Serbian PM: We will never build a wall to keep out refugees

28.8.2015 5:26 Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić told the Reuters news agency on 27 August that Serbia will never close its borders to refugees. He added that EU leaders must aid the creation of a plan for how to deal with the tens of thousands of refugees flowing to the Balkans.  full story

EU interior ministers offer 8 000 fewer places than needed for refugee redistribution

20.7.2015 23:32 EU-28 interior ministers did not manage to fully agree today on the redistribution of 40 000 asylum seekers currently located in Greece and Italy. Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec said the EU-28 states have offered to redistribute only 32 000 people during the next two years.  full story

Hungary adopts law allowing construction of fence against immigrants

9.7.2015 19:53 Reuters reports that the Hungarian Parliament adopted a law on 6 July tightening conditions for granting asylum and allowing the construction of a fence on the border with Serbia to halt the influx of immigrants entering the country illegally. The new law shortens the time for evaluating asylum requests and facilitates the rejection of applications from immigrants who have passed through a so-called "safe country" where they were not in serious danger while fleeing, for example, Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria.  full story

EU and UN criticize Hungary for local treatment of Roma and border fence plans

22.6.2015 23:40 On 16 June, politics.hu reported that EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova said the Miskolc council's recent moves with respect to the housing of Romani people contravene both the EU's Roma Integration Framework Strategy and Hungary's own Roma Strategy. The Commissioner made the statement in response to a written question submitted by MEP Péter Niedermüller (Democratic Coalition) in March.  full story

Hungary erecting four-meter-high fence against migrants on its border with Serbia

18.6.2015 22:00 The Hungarian Government wants to build a four-meter-high fence along its border with Serbia to stop the influx of illegal migrants. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó announced on 17 June that the Government has called on the Interior Ministry to design the appropriate project by next Wednesday, according to the MTI agency.  full story