European Network on Statelessness, a network of 53 organisations, launched its report Still Stateless, Still Suffering – Why Europe Must Act Now to Protect Stateless Persons, which contains testimonies by stateless migrants living in 11 European countries. It unveils a shocking but previously hidden picture of individuals languishing in immigration detention for years, living destitute on the streets, stuck in endless limbo and desperately seeking to become a part of mainstream society.

The report asks why so little is being done to protect people in this situation, and makes recommendations for urgent reform by calling on states to implement adequate safeguards and regularisation procedures for stateless persons living among us today. The report contains 20 stories collected through individual interviews and clearly indicates the necessity why European governments must act now.

The publication of the report coincides with the 60th anniversary of the 1954 UN Statelessness Convention, and is a part of a wider campaign bringing together a broad spectrum of actors. The campaign will culminate in a concerted day of action against statelessness across Europe on 14 October 2014.

 “Stateless people do not choose to live without a nationality and they urgently need our help if they are to be rescued from spending years of their lives stuck in limbo - facing detention, destitution and with no way out. Yet the solution is simple and many more states need to follow the recent example set by the UK in establishing a dedicated mechanism to identify and regularise stateless persons. This not only allows states to respect their international obligations but also provides a policy solution for individuals who lack a nationality so anyway have no other place to go. Otherwise stateless persons will continue to suffer in the abject conditions highlighted in our report.” (Chris Nash, Director of the European Network on Statelessness)

Download the report: Still Stateless, Still Suffering – Why Europe Must Act Now to Protect Stateless Persons

* The European Network on Statelessness (ENS) is a network of non-governmental organisations, academic initiatives, and individual experts committed to address statelessness in Europe. Based in London, ENS is a coordinating body and expert resource for organisations across Europe who work with or come into contact with stateless persons. It currently has 53 member organisations in over 30 European countries.

The graffiti It’s no use of having a mass when you are Gypsy race was written on the wall of the post office in Nis-based settlement “9 May”. The employees of the post office did not know how long the graffiti had been there. Because of the graffiti, in July 2013 Praxis filed a petition to the Department for Public Utility Services, Energy and Traffic of the City of Nis against an unknown person for writing the graffiti which insults and discriminates against the members of Roma ethnic minority.

The petition was immediately forwarded to Public Enterprise Directorate for the Construction of the City of Nis, which removed the anti-Roma graffiti in April 2014, after Praxis reaction. Since the post office is located in the centre of the settlement, nearby the bus station, green market and a school, the graffiti was noticeable on the wall looking at the street before it was removed.

The lack of immediate reaction of the competent authority implies that the hatred message had not been taken seriously by the competent authorities, but that they permitted that members of Roma ethnic minority be exposed to discrimination and hate speech throughout a long period of time.

The level of tolerance in society is still low, which is additionally supported by slow reactions of competent authorities and the fact that perpetrators remain unknown and unpunished. 

The graffiti It’s no use of having a mass when you are Gypsy race was written on the wall of the post office in Nis-based settlement “9 May”. The employees of the post office did not know how long the graffiti had been there. Because of the graffiti, in July 2013 Praxis filed a petition to the Department for Public Utility Services, Energy and Traffic of the City of Nis against an unknown person for writing the graffiti which insults and discriminates against the members of Roma ethnic minority.

The petition was immediately forwarded to Public Enterprise Directorate for the Construction of the City of Nis, which removed the anti-Roma graffiti in April 2014, after Praxis reaction. Since the post office is located in the centre of the settlement, nearby the bus station, green market and a school, the graffiti was noticeable on the wall looking at the street before it was removed.

The lack of immediate reaction of the competent authority implies that the hatred message had not been taken seriously by the competent authorities, but that they permitted that members of Roma ethnic minority be exposed to discrimination and hate speech throughout a long period of time.

The level of tolerance in society is still low, which is additionally supported by slow reactions of competent authorities and the fact that perpetrators remain unknown and unpunished.

In order to include the civil society in the process of accession negotiations with the European Union, the National Convention on the European Union (NCEU) was established as a platform that should facilitate dialogue between the civil society and representatives of the National Assembly, the Government and the Negotiating Team, and ensure the monitoring of compliance with the conditions for membership and provision of quality information to the public.

NCEU, in addition to the Presidency and the Programme Council, consists of the working groups formed for different negotiation chapters. Praxis, in accordance with its mandate, has joined the working groups that monitor the compliance with benchmark requirements for Chapter 19 - Social Policy and Employment, Chapter 23 - Judiciary and Fundamental Rights and Chapter 24 - Justice, Freedom and Security.

The working group that monitors Chapter 19 - Social Policy and Employment monitors also Chapter 2 – Freedom of Movement for Workers. Within chapter 19, the Working Group will, inter alia, consider the obligations in the field of social inclusion and poverty reduction. The Working Group Coordinator is the Centre for Democracy Foundation.

Within the monitoring of Chapter 23, the Working Group will contribute to ensuring respect for human rights and human dignity, freedom, democracy, the principles of equality, and to achieving the rule of law. The Working Group Coordinator is the Human Rights House.

The goal of the Working Group on Chapter 24 is to monitor the process of Serbia’s negotiations with the EU and contribute to the formulation of proposals for the improvement of policies in the area of justice, freedom and security. The Working Group Coordinator is the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy.

The accession negotiation with the European Union is a long-lasting process, which means that the impact of civil society on the state’s negotiating position can be measured only at the end. Until then, we believe that it is very important that the formation of NCEU working groups has opened up the possibility for the civil society to participate actively in this process.

Danilo Curcic, Praxis legal analyst, talked about internally displaced persons for Vreme Weekly.

Downlaod: Integration or Return

Taken from the weekly Vreme

"The main impression about the residents of collective centres is that these people are completely forgotten: they do not receive any visits, they live in terrible conditions and they get one meal a day in some centres or three meals a day in other centres, and that's all.”

According to the Serbian Commissariat for Refugees and Migrations, there are 14 collective centres with 1169 people in Serbia today. All collective centres are located in the territory of Serbia, excluding Kosovo and Metohija, while in Vojvodina, all centres for emergency accommodation for refugees and displaced persons have already been closed. The Commissariat’s website also informs that their number has been rapidly decreasing as a result of the implementation of the plan on closing collective centres. In 1996, there were about 700 of these centres, while in January 2002 there were 388 centres that accommodated 26,863 people. In Serbia today, after nearly 20 years, there are still collective centres; over a thousand people have not yet received any decision on their future housing and continue living in emergency accommodation, in uncertainty.

We have discussed the situation in collective centres, the problems faced by their residents, the legal and administrative difficulties they encounter, and in particular the status of internally displaced Roma, with Danilo Curcic, Legal Analyst in the NGO Praxis, who has just returned from a field visit to these centres.

“When we compare the number of internally displaced Roma and non-Roma accommodated in collective centres, we clearly see that more non-Roma have been housed in these centres. If we take into account the fact that even before the war the Roma population was in a more disadvantaged position than the majority population in Kosovo, and that the number of Roma accommodated in collective centres does not reflect that situation, it becomes obvious that the system has failed. Furthermore, there are separate Roma and non-Roma collective centres, although such a division does not exist officially. However, Bujanovac is a specific case with its three collective centres. For example, in one kindergarten that was converted into a collective centre, there is only one Roma family while all others are non-Roma, but there is also the Collective Centre Salvatore that accommodates only Roma. In fact, the Roma and non-Roma communities do not mix to a greater extent in any place.”
About the situation in collective centres, the structure of their residents and their rights, Curcic says:

"The residents of these collective centres are both displaced persons from Kosovo and, still, refugees. We have recently been in Gadzin Han, where the collective centre is located in a school building. IDPs and refugees, about 19 elderly people, including seven or eight double refugees, meaning that they first fled from Croatia to Kosovo and then here from Kosovo, live on the ground floor. And they have been sitting and waiting for a solution for 20 years. There are few residents of working age who do some work from time to time, mainly fruit picking or similar jobs, and all of them have been waiting for something although they do not know what. I talked to a lady who had fled from Sinj to Djakovica, and then here – she has not acquired yet the Serbian citizenship, she is still a citizen of Croatia. I asked her if she knew what her solution would be once the collective centre was closed, and she said that there were plans for her to be housed in a home for the elderly. However, before that can happen she has to regulate the matter of citizenship at the social welfare centre as guardianship authority. In Bujanovac, for example, social welfare centres refuse to provide social assistance to people in collective centres because they consider that these people are provided with the required minimum - a roof over their heads and meals. The main impression about the people in collective centres is that they are completely forgotten: they do not receive any visits, they live in terrible conditions and they get one meal a day in some centres or three meals a day in other centres, and that's all.

The people who have stayed in the centres are usually those who are the least resourceful or who were unable to find any other solution because of some specific life circumstances. The unemployed who used to be employed in public administration receive an allowance in the amount of 8,500 dinars. Their life stories are very difficult and it is somehow strange that the state does not see them as priority, but considers their situation as a usual course of development and they have to wait for their turn. In Vranjska Banja, for example, women are mostly retired; they even worked in the same factory in Kosovo, and they mostly live in single households or they are household providers because they have ill family members. There are also many children, but mostly in the centres that accommodate Roma. The first impression of all these centres is that people are completely lethargic, that they are still awaiting a solution that has not appeared already for 20 years.”

Various administrative difficulties faced by the displaced are also the reason for the inability to integrate into the community and exercise the major human rights. This particularly refers to Roma:

“The big problem with Roma is the fact that even before the arrival from Kosovo, they were not registered in births registry books and are therefore legally invisible. Another problem is that some registry books remained in Kosovo; they were neither brought from Kosovo after the war nor were their microfilm copies made, which created the situation where a number of IDPs have a valid ID card, but do not possess birth certificates. They should undergo a procedure of re-registration, and a very large number of these procedures have been completed, but those that remain to be done are rather exhausting. People have to initiate a procedure by themselves, which costs them money, the more so because the relevant registry offices are located mainly in the south of Serbia. Hence, for example, if someone moved from Kosovo to Subotica, he or she should go to Nis to regulate his or her documentation status. This is a problem that no one has managed to resolve in 15 years.

There are also some illogical requirements that include field checks of permanent residence registration in cases where someone wants to de-register from Kosovo and register here. There is a rather specific regulation according to which police officers perform field checks of permanent residence registration. These checks are often unpleasant because someone comes and checks if you actually live there; enters the apartment, opens the closets, checks whether clothes are there, checks whether the person can speak Serbian. And there is a problem with Roma, since they often cannot speak Serbian well, but can speak only Romani and Albanian.”

As a separate legal issue, Curcic points out a legal provision envisaging additional taxation of displaced persons who are allocated social housing: "These are the Amendments to the Law on Property Tax that stipulate that taxes for renting social housing shall be paid separately. However, the Law on Social Housing protects certain categories of people, including internally displaced persons from Kosovo. How is it possible then to adopt the Amendments to the Law on Property Tax providing that people belonging to vulnerable groups are obliged to pay the social housing tax?”

The status and accommodation of Roma is one of the biggest issues when it comes to the integration of internally displaced persons from Kosovo. It can be viewed from different aspects: as accommodation of displaced persons from Kosovo, as the provision of living conditions for the Roma population in general, as the attitude of the state towards the most disadvantaged minority, etc.

“The problem is,” says Danilo Curcic, "that there should be special programmes, measures, affirmative actions for vulnerable people aimed at raising the level of their rights and dignity. However, we do not have any special programmes even for the Roma from informal settlements; there are no programmes for their housing and solving their problems. We had a case of internally displaced persons from Kosovo, who were issued ID cards with the address in Belgrade at Ivana Ribara bb, in Ledine, behind a residential area, and they were told they could live there. And then the Building Directorate came and demolished the settlement in order to construct buildings on that site. Eventually, all the Roma from Kosovo remained in the street and the settlement residents from Belgrade were given containers. A month later, the residents of Belvil, which is only three kilometres away, were evicted, and all the Roma from Kosovo who had lived in that settlement were given accommodation in a container settlement. This means that there are no criteria; there is absolutely no reason why some Roma got accommodation, while others did not. The explanation is that one policy was pursued by the city authorities and another by the state administration. On the other hand, there is an informal Roma settlement in Kraljevo, which has the status of a collective centre. How could it be a collective centre, and the one in Block 72 could not, why aren’t they all in the same position? In Belgrade, on the road to Obrenovac, in a forest, the Roma from Kosovo have built some structures in which they live. Various services visit them every year to ask them what housing solutions they would want to have, promise that they would be given rural households, or give them one or two cubic metres of firewood, and nothing more; they just collect the information and do not take any further action. Roma have lived completely marginalised in this forest since 1999, without any support, even without ID cards. I do not see any indication that this will be solved at some point.”

Download the entire article on internally displaced persons published in the weekly magazine Time: Integration or Return

The Regulations on the Amendments to the Regulations on Identity Card came into force on 20 August 2014. According to the previously applicable provision of the Regulations, when submitting the request for the issuance of ID card, the submitter had also to enclose the birth and citizenship certificates, among other documents (in case it is the first request for the issuance of ID card). However, the amendments to the Regulations provided that primary obligation of the Ministry of Interior is to establish the facts for the fulfillment of conditions for the issuance of ID cards ex officio. It means that MoI needs to have an insight into the birth, marriage, death and citizenship registries, and any other official registries, and only if it does not manage to establish necessary facts in this way, may it require from the submitter of request to deliver the birth and citizenship certificates, and any other documents proving the fulfillment of conditions for the issuance of ID card.

This amendment to the Regulations is undoubtedly a positive solution, which should facilitate the submission of requests for the issuance of ID card, exempting them also from the recent costs of obtaining birth and citizenship certificates. However, it remains to see whether or when police stations and police departments will start to act as prescribed, i.e. when the conditions, which will allow obtaining ex officio all necessary evidence and data, will be created. Moreover, almost the same provision has been contained in the Law on Identity Card since 2001, but its application has not been full and consistent.

In addition, by the latest amendments, the Regulations on Identity Card was complied with provisions of the Law on Permanent and Temporary Residence and the Law on Identity Card, and thus this bylaw contains the provision providing that ID card to citizens who have the right to an ID card and have no legal basis for the registration of permanent residence is issued on the basis of the determined temporary residence with two-year validity.

National Employment Service (NES) announced a Public Call for granting subsidies for self-employment of persons of Roma ethnicity in 2014. The subsidies are directed at unemployed persons of Roma ethnicity who are registered with the NES and have completed the training for starting their own business. The subsidy is granted to an unemployed person in the amount of 160.000,00 dinars, and the person who is granted the subsidy is obliged to run the registered business for at least 12 months. The right to subsidy may also be exercised by several unemployed persons entering into partnership, founding a business society for self-employment and, in that case, each person individually submits a request for self-employment and the exercise of the right to subsidy of 160.000,00 dinars. The request with the business plan is submitted at the form prescribed by the NES. Potential beneficiary of the subsidy is obliged to provide some form of debt security (mortgage, right of pledge, bond, bill of exchange) prior to concluding the contract. The deadline for submitting the request with the business plan is 29 August 2014.

For detailed information see: Public Call to the unemployed persons of Roma ethnicity for granting self-employment subsidies in 2014
The list of businesses that cannot be subsidized through the Public Call
Request with the business plan for self-employment subsidies

Download the report: Implementation and Monitoring of Quality Standards for the Health Protection of Roma in Serbia - Centre for Minority Rights

Praxis submitted the Initiative for assessment of constitutionality of the Article 85, Paragraph 2 of the Law on Civil Procedure for the denial of the right to a fair trial to some population groups by prescribing illegitimate and disproportionate limitations and for threatening the constitutional principle of equality of legal protection before the courts and other state bodies. On that occasion, Jasmina Mikovic, Praxis Deputy Director, gave an interview for ALO! Daily.

More about the Initiative.