AYS Daily Digest 9/12/20: Officials intimidated NGOs, preventing legal assistance to people brought into a deserted factory by the police
By: Are You Syrious
Tags: Refugees, Migration, Digest, Greece, Serbia

AYS Daily Digest 9/12/20: Officials intimidated NGOs, preventing legal assistance to people brought into a deserted factory by the police

Serbia in crisis of accommodation and reception, most of all — of political will / Bosnia and Herzegovina in the midst of humanitarian crisis, brought by both the local politics and international actors / AYS Free Shop needs donations / Across France people in need of emergency accommodation / Serious development of the situation on the Canary Islands / & more news Are You Syrious? Follow Dec 10, 2020 · 12 min read

FEATURED

Serbia — In a country where all centres intended to lodge people on the move are over capacity and conditions are nowhere near what might be fit to house people, where a dire need for more accommodation has brought the organisations working with people on the move to status quo, and where everything is in such state that it begs for a change in order to move things forward, officials are often not the address to turn to in order to solve the problem, but rather they are its root cause. In one of the most recent events, members of Klikaktiv — Centar za razvoj socijalnih politika documented one of many mistreatments by the police and very avid proof of the lack of basic knowledge of the law, obligations and rights, particularly human rights, that all headlines will be full of on 10 December. They write:

“During yesterday’s visit to Majdan, a place on the border triangle of Serbia, Romania and Hungary, our team was hindered in carrying out activities providing legal support. People are mostly found in abandoned houses at Majdan, but recently they have also been placed in a former milk factory where the police take them so that they do not stay in abandoned houses in the village.”

There are around 50 people in the village, while there are 90 in the factory, with no electricity, drinking water, they receive no blankets, sleeping bags or tents, or any other humanitarian aid. Also, they do not have access to medical and legal assistance, which they urgently need.

The police patrol, which is now constantly in the village, told us, after they checked our identities and ID cards, that they have an order from their police station to tell us that we are not allowed to carry out our activities independently, but that we should first contact the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration of Serbia (CRMS) and to carry out activities together with them only in camps that are run by CRMS. We emphasize that the Law on Asylum stipulates that legal aid is provided exclusively by non-governmental organizations, while CRMS is given the authority only to provide material conditions for reception, they state, continuing to state that this was not the first such event in Majdan:

A month ago, the police also checked our ID cards in Majdan, but then the police officer, after consultations with the Kikinda PS, said “he recommends that we first contact CRMS and carry out our activity in refugee camps together with them later on.” A police officer was much more careful in giving a statement at that time, telling us that he “recommended” this to us, which is the only thing he can do, considering that neither then, just like yesterday, we did not break any law. Of course, we continued our work back then, but yesterday, regardless of the fact that the police officers behaved correctly while interacting with us, after our lawyer explained that, according to the Law on Asylum and the Law on Providing Free Legal Support, we have the right to continue with our activities, the policeman who received the order from his superiors only said that he knows nothing about the laws, but he was just told to pass this warning to us. After this incident with the police, it was impossible for us to establish normal contact with the refugees because they were scared of the police presence the whole time, since the police officers followed every step we made. When we went to the “Factory” a little later, which is located outside the village, an employee of the Commissariat for Refugees arrived again, ten minutes after we did, and soon after him came an intervention unit of the police. After that, we left because we were worried that if we insist on continuing our work it might create further problems for the refugees with the police.”

Police officers on the ground, regardless of their correctness in conversation with us, showed that they have no knowledge of the law and with their rhetoric created almost impossible working conditions for us. This is a clear example of criminalization (even if it was involuntary and caused by ignorance) of humanitarian work, but we as an organization will not give up and will continue to provide legal and psychosocial support to all refugees who are on the territory of Serbia.

As a reminder of the situation in Serbia, we recommend reading what our friends at the Asylum Protection Centre in Belgrade had to say about the asylum system in Serbia: