In October 2014, Praxis reported to the Utility Inspection Department of the Mladenovac City Municipality the poster “Stop Asylum”, which violates the rights of asylum seekers and spreads xenophobia and intolerance.

The administrative body reacted quickly and in only 4 days it reached the decision ordering to “NN person within two days of receiving the decision” to remove the posters. The photos documenting that the utility inspector went to the field and established the facts were enclosed to the decision.

To be even more absurd, the administrative body cited in the decision the article of the Decision on Advertising Activities on the Territory of the City of Belgrade(hereinafter: Decision), contrary to which the poster was put, but not the article of the Decision which clearly indicates how to perform the administrative measure of removing the illegally placed posters when a person who placed them is unknown. Specifically, the Paragraph 5, Article 34 of the Decision unambiguously states that “if the inspector’s decision orders the removal of posters, and a person to whom the measure was issued does not act upon the decision, or the person who put the poster is unknown, the decision may be performed through the subject which the city or the city municipality entrusted with cleaning”.  

Praxis filed a complaint to the Secretariat for Inspections of the Belgrade City Administration, which resulted in the second-instance decision in which this body rejects the complaint as ungrounded, while referring to the Paragraph 5, Article 34 of the Decision. Afterwards, Praxis filed a lawsuit to the Administrative Court.

While the administrative bodies “are exercising” the application of law, it is inadmissible that disputable posters are spreading panics among the citizens of Mladenovac and asylum seekers with the message “They are coming to us, and we?”.