108 Europe and Central Asia Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Region, January – June 2007 In a separate development, on 4 April Ižet Fijuljanin was convicted and sentenced for the attempted murder of three members of the Wahhhabi faith in November 2006 after they had allegedly tried to take over a mosque in Novi Pazar. Human Rights Defenders (Update to AI Index: EUR 70/016/2005). In June a coalition of NGOs including Women in Black, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and The Anti-Trafficking Centre called on the Serbian Parliament to apply the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. They highlighted the risks, including physical violence, prosecutions and public stigmatization, to which women defenders in Serbia were exposed, and the impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators of such attacks. Violence against women In their consideration of Serbia’s report on implementation of the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (Women’s Convention), the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) expressed concern at the prevalence of domestic violence and the apparent reduction in penalties. They recommended the adoption of a national action plan on gender equality and the adoption of a law to consolidate existing provisions within the Criminal Code. CEDAW similarly urged Serbia to adopt a draft National Plan against Human Trafficking. Kosovo International scrutiny (UNMIK) failed to provide responses to the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) in connection with impunity for war crimes, including enforced disappearances, and conditions for the return of refugees, requested within six months of the HRC’s consideration of UNMIK’s report in July Amnesty International 2006. The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in March visited places of detention in Kosovo including police stations, prisons, psychiatric institutions and the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) detention centre at US Camp Bondsteel. Impunity for the International community In February Marek Nowicki, the former international Ombudsperson in Kosovo, was appointed chair of the Human Rights Advisory Panel (HRAP), established in March 2006 to provide persons in Kosovo with access to remedies for acts and omissions by UNMIK. The HRAP had not convened by the end of June. On 30 May the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled inadmissible two cases in which persons in Kosovo sought redress and reparations for violations of their rights by members of KFOR. The court considered that the acts and omissions of UNMIK and KFOR could not be attributed to the respondent states (France and Norway), did not take place on the territory of those states nor by a decision of their authorities. Agim Behrani had sought redress under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (on the right to life) in the case of his 12-year-old son Gadaf, who had been killed in May 2000 by an unexploded cluster bomb, which a multi-national contingent of KFOR led by France had failed to detonate or mark; his younger son Bekim was severely injured. The second applicant, Ruzdhi Saramati had complained about the deprivation of his liberty by the commander of KFOR (at that time a Norwegian) and the denial of access to a court where he might challenge the legality of his detention, from 13 July 2001 until 26 January 2002, despite orders for his release issued by the Supreme Court in June 2001. AI Index: EUR 01/010/2007