Dacic Pledge to Turkey Worries Serbian Rights Advocates
 |
| Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic, third from left, in Antalya. Photo: Serbian Foreign Ministry |
Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic’s pledge that Belgrade will “not shelter anyone who fights against Turkish interests” has alarmed rights lawyers in Serbia, who warn that extraditions could violate Serbian laws and international obligations.
A lawyer for the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, Nikola Kovacevic, said Dacic’s statement was also a cause for concern because decisions on extraditions do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Foreign Ministry.
“This statement suggests that the outcome of [extradition] procedures would not be according to the constitution, Serbian laws and international contracts, but would probably be solved on a political level,” Kovacevic told BIRN.
Kovacevic said the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights has no knowledge of pending extradition requests from Istanbul, but expressed concern for the future.
Dacic was in Turkey attending the opening of a Serbian consulate in the city of Antalya on Sunday when he made the statement about “not giving shelter to anyone” who endangered Turkey’s interests, Serbian media reported.
The statement worried human rights activists in part because Belgrade controversially extradited a Kurdish activist who sought asylum in Serbia in December 2017.
Activist and victim of torture Cevdet Ayaz had been sentenced to 15 years in jail in Turkey for acts against the country’s constitutional order.
The decision to extradite him was made despite the UN Committee Against Torture, UNCAT, saying he should not be forcibly removed until it had finished considering his case.
Human rights campaigners pledged to file a complaint against Serbia to UNCAT because of the extradition.
Another human rights lawyer, Danilo Curcic, said the extradition of Ayaz showed that the asylum system in Serbia was “dysfunctional” and “politicised”.
He cited the cases of two businessmen from Romania and Bulgaria, Sebastian Githa and Tsvetan Vassilev, who were granted asylum in Serbia in 2018 despite having arrest warrants in their native countries.
Curcic said Dacic’s statement shows that politics will interfere in asylum approval processes, heralding new violations of Serbia’s international obligations in the field of human rights protection and refugees’ rights.
“There are very clear reasons why an asylum request can be denied, and they are not the reasons that the minister mentioned,” Curcic told BIRN.
After foiling an attempted coup in 2016, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has waged an aggressive campaign against political opponents, which has included pressurising foreign countries to hand over suspected foes of the regime.
Erdogan’s stance has alienated most of Turkey’s Western allies; the US has meanwhile imposed economic sanctions against Turkey for detaining an American pastor, accused of having links to Kurdish separatists and the coup plotters – allegations he denies.
While most Western countries are distancing themselves from the Erdogan regime, some Balkan countries, like Serbia, remain determined to remain close to both the EU and Turkey.
Read more:
