Belgrade, 10. 12. 2024.
Serbia is still in the category of “obstructed” countries when it comes to civil space, but due to the significant decline in civil liberties this year, it was additionally highlighted as a “country of interest” – these are the findings of the International Alliance of Non-Governmental Organizations CIVICUS, which presented its regular annual report today in Belgrade.
Presenting the report “People Power Under Attack 2024”, CIVICUS Monitor researcher Tara Petrović said that the right to protest is under threat all over the world, and the arrest of demonstrators is by far the most common tactic limiting the rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association. At the global level, but also at the level of Europe, the protests of activists for the protection of the environment, as well as the protests in solidarity with Palestine, were specifically targeted.
In 2024, there were mass protests in Serbia as a reaction to the renewal of the controversial lithium mining project. Dozens of activists were arrested in 17 cities in August, and a large number of them were accused of “calling for the violent overthrow of the constitutional order”. Those accusations were often based on their social media activity or participation in protests. As stated, the Government further escalated tensions by representing resistance to the lithium exploitation project as a foreign-backed effort to destabilize Serbia. High officials and pro-government media accused civil society organizations of organizing a “color revolution”.
The situation worsened after the tragic collapse of the train station in Novi Sad, in which 15 people died, which sparked new protests. Authorities responded with increased repression, including excessive use of force and arrests of protesters by plainclothes police officers who refused to identify themselves, raising serious concerns about human rights abuses and the safety of protesters.
“In Serbia, from January to November, 177 incidents were recorded in which basic freedoms were violated: we have an increased number of arrests, detentions, exceeding the authority of the police, abuse of the law in order to ‘justify’ arrests… For example, in connection with the protest due to the tragedy in Novi Sad, we recorded 38 different incidents of arrest and detention due to participation in a public meeting, in the case of the Old Sava bridge protest, we recorded at least 40 in connection with the anti-lithium protests,” said Uroš Jovanović from Civil Initiatives and added that campaigns to slander civil society organizations have intensified, but also the so-called SLAPP lawsuits as a mechanism to intimidate and silence activists and journalists.
Unlike Serbia, according to the CIVICUS analysis, Slovenia was upgraded from a “narrowed” to an “open” civic space. According to reports, the current government has improved the dialogue with civil society, introduced new consultation mechanisms and reformed the public broadcaster RTV Slovenia.
The turning point was the change of government in 2022, said Goran Forbici, from the Center for Information, Development and Cooperation of NGOs from Slovenia.
“Civil society established two conditions for giving support to the opposition at the time – we then prepared a law on the cancellation of harmful measures introduced during covid, as well as a law on public service that was supposed to achieve its depoliticization. They promised that after the elections they would support those laws in parliament, and that happened,” he said, adding that the turnout in those elections increased by 20 percent compared to previous years – from 50% to 70%.
By the way, based on data collected by over 20 research teams covering 198 countries and territories, the CIVICUS Monitor platform evaluates the civic space in all countries of the world from 0-100, placing them in one of five categories. The latest estimates show that out of 54 countries in Europe and Central Asia, 19 are rated as “open”, 19 as “narrowed”, seven as “obstructed”, three as “under repression” and six as “closed”.
Poland was upgraded from the rating of “obstructed” to “narrowed” civil space. After the change of government, steps were taken to address issues such as the independence of the judiciary and improving relations with civil society. However, concerns remain regarding media reforms and migration policies. The Netherlands has been downgraded from “open” to “narrowed”. The authorities have increasingly disrupted peaceful environmental protests, using measures such as water cannons and mass arrests. Georgia experienced a decline in civic space from “narrowed” to “obstructed”, with increased restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly.
Key trends in the region include the spread of dangerous “foreign agent” laws, such as the one recently proposed in Serbia, and “LGBT propaganda” – laws by which authorities throughout the region introduce censorship and threaten human rights under the guise of protecting national interests and traditional values. During 2024, such laws were proposed or adopted in several European Union countries – Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria, as well as elsewhere in the region, including Turkey, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. In Georgia, the passage of a law on foreign agents sparked mass demonstrations, to which the authorities responded with violent repression, earning the country a downgraded civic space rating in the latest report.