Serbian NGO sues Pirot police over shutdown of Pride Caravan

The Serbian LGBT rights organisation Da se zna! has filed a lawsuit with the Administrative Court against the Pirot Police Department, over the decision that shut down a public gathering held as part of the Pride Caravan in Pirot on July 18.

The lawsuit argues that under the Constitution of Serbia, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the case law of both the European Court of Human Rights and Serbia's Constitutional Court, the state does not merely have an obligation to refrain from unjustified restrictions on freedom of assembly. It also carries a positive obligation to take reasonable and appropriate measures to make a peaceful gathering possible in the first place.

The most restrictive measure available

According to the filing, police in this case prevented the organisers and participants of the Pride Caravan from reaching the venue at all. The organisation argues that this amounted to applying the single most restrictive measure available, without considering any of the other options open to the police.

Da se zna! is asking the Administrative Court to annul the Pirot Police Department's order terminating the Pride Caravan, and to establish that the order unlawfully restricted the right to peaceful assembly.

Prepared to go to Strasbourg

Should the Administrative Court reject the lawsuit, the organisation says it will continue the proceedings before the Constitutional Court, and then, if necessary, before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

During the events in Pirot, journalists Sara Stanojević of Tampon zona and Aleksandar Đokić of the Mašina portal were prevented from reporting freely for their newsrooms, facing threats of physical force, insults and intimidation, as journalists' associations reported at the time. N1 television reporter Gordana Bjeletić was struck while covering the gathering.

Source: masina.rs. English adaptation: gay-serbia.com.