OVERSIGHT

At the panel discussion “Freedoms Under Pressure: Civil Society and Digital Oversight in Serbia and Abroad”, organised by the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) on 31 October in Belgrade, speakers warned that digital surveillance and spyware use are rapidly becoming tools of political control in Serbia and across Europe, posing severe risks to human rights and democracy.

The Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) strongly condemns the Serbian authorities’ misuse of digital technologies for surveillance of citizens, as detailed in the Amnesty International report "Digital Prison: Surveillance and Repression of Civil Society in Serbia."

In this document, colleagues from the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights analyze the position of the Ombudsman (Protector of Citizens) from the point of view of the attitude of the National Assembly and the Government of the Republic of Serbia toward the Ombudsman’s regular annual reports.

BCSP Researcher Marija Ignjatijević analyses parliamentary oversight of the police in Serbia through the lens of the European integration process and offers recommendations on how to connect it to the negotiating Chapter 24 – Justice, Freedom and Security.

Through a series of online workshops held from 13th to 23rd October, BCSP interns learned more about security sector reform, cybersecurity, and public policy research.

This analysis by the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) concludes that during the 52 days it spent in a state of emergency, Serbia failed the test of democracy, thanks to a series of failings and irregularities in the conduct and control of the security sector.

The objective of the project that BCSP realizes with partners is to contribute to reversing the trends of state capture through advocating for the substantial reforms that would promote integrity and accountability of the intelligence sector.

The European Union should respond to the signals of abuse of the security-intelligence services highlighted by civil society in Serbia and Montenegro before a big-scale affair arises like in North Macedonia in 2015, it was concluded at the event organized by the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) on 4 June 2019 in Belgrade. The European Commission has recognized that the countries of the Western Balkans increasingly face state ...

BCSP Researcher Jelena Pejic writes about how implementing the so called "Priebe report" in every country of the Western Balkans would contribute to the fight against state capture.