Dunja Mijatovic

Strasbourg – Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović wrote a letter to Prime Minister Janez Janša on Monday, urging him to immediately reintroduce funding to the Slovenian Press Agency (STA). She expressed concern that the suspension of public funding could jeopardise the agency’s future.

The commemoration was a scaled-down version of the annual White Armband Day event in Prijedor, where large-scale crimes were committed during the war including killings, expulsions and the unlawful detentions of civilians in prison camps.

A total of 3,176 people were killed in the area, among them 256 women and 102 children - the majority of them Bosniaks.

The Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, Dunja Mijatovic, said in a report published on Tuesday that the principles and standards on which human rights have been built in Europe over the past seven decades are being increasingly challenged.

Media regulations across the region have been tightened under states of emergency and journalists have been arrested on accusations of spreading misinformation concerning the response of authorities to the spread of the novel coronavirus. 

Some countries have sought to centralise the dissemination of official information and banned certain media from regular briefings. 

The Defence Ministry reacted angrily on Wednesday evening after the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatovic, criticised it for hosting a promotional event in Belgrade for a book that denies court findings that Bosnian Serb forces were responsible for the May 1995 massacre in Tuzla.

With overcrowded Greek migrant camps facing explosive new problems, a top EU legal adviser said Thursday that Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic broke European Union law by refusing to comply with a refugee quota program meant to address such challenges.

A European human rights watchdog on Thursday slammed living conditions as "horrible" for thousands of asylum seekers in overcrowded Greek camps, including waits spanning several hours for food and toilets and a lack of access to medicine.

After the UN's country team in Bosnia expressed strong concern over the forcible transfer of migrants and asylum-seekers to the Vucjak camp on the western border with Croatia - noting serious security and health risks - the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights has condemned Bosnia's handling of the situation.

Dunja Mijatovic said at the opening of an exhibition entitled 'Srebrenica - Mothers' Long Fight for Justice' in Strasbourg on Wednesday that the Council of Europe should mark July 11 as an official remembrance day for the victims of Srebrenica.

The legislation is named after a teenager abducted and murdered several years ago, and aims to introduce life sentence for those found guilty of committing the most serious crimes.