Belgrade Centre for Human Rights

Sonja Toskovic from the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights said that Serbia breached international and domestic human rights obligations by deporting a Bahraini national to his home country despite an interim ruling by the European Court of Human Rights saying that the extradition should be postponed until the Strasbourg court completes its proceedings in the case on February 25.

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.

The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights and Cevdet Ayaz's former lawyer Ana Trkulja will lodge a complaint against Serbia for ignoring the UN Committee Against Torture request not to send the Kurdish activist and victim of torture to Turkey.

"[Serbia] extradited him despite the decision of the Committee, so that's where the complaint against Serbia will be filed," Trkulja told BIRN.

Serbia has granted only two asylum requests out of more than 150 applications submitted in 2017, and the National Office for Asylum is backed up with hundreds more cases, mostly due to lack of staff, reported Balkan Insight. 

Serbia has granted only two asylum requests out of more than 150 applications submitted in 2017, and the National Office for Asylum is backed up with hundreds more cases, mostly due to lack of staff.

The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights has accused Bulgarian police of brutality towards migrants in a new report funded by British charity Oxfam.

The report of alleged abuses is based on the testimony of migrants walking through from Bulgaria into Serbia. The migrants claim that they had been subject to beatings and extortion by Bulgarian police.