BELGRADE, Serbia – The failure to capture war criminal Ratko Mladic and bring him to justice has resulted in the resignation of the Serbian government official responsible for capturing him.

Rasim Ljajic had indicated earlier in the year that he would resign if he was unable to capture Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military chief, and deliver him to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ITCY) by the start of the new year.  Until this development Ljajic had held the responsibility within the Serbian government of tracking down the war criminal who was first indicated by an international tribunal of the Hague in 1995.

Photo: Official Rasim Ljajic has led the Serbian unit in charge of capturing war criminal Ratko Mladic.
Mladic is charged with ordering the killing of approximately 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica and orchestrating the 43-month siege of Sarajevo during the Yugoslavia-Bosnian War.  He is indicted for charges of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity relating to the massacre.

In his resignation letter to the Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic, Ljajic indicated that despite his decision to step down he had confidence that the unit he has headed for four years would achieve their objective.  “The past year has been the most successful so far.  We have never worked so hard…and I am certain that such an effort must have results.”

After the war between Yugoslavia and the breakaway republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina ended in 1995, Mladic lived free from prosecution in Serbia until recent years, when he then allegedly went into hiding.  The effort to capture Mladic began when a specialized unit was formed, with Ljajic in charge.  In the addition to the formation of a unit created for the purpose of capturing Mladic, the Serbian government has also offered a reward of 1 million euros for his capture.

The efforts of this Serbian unit to track down Mladic and deliver him to the ICTY has been seen as a sticking point in the possibility of Serbia receiving European Union membership in the future.  The government of the Netherlands has blocked Serbia’s entry into the EU, demanding that Serbia first must prove its commitment to capturing Mladic and others charged with crimes in the war.

Ljajic will remain in his posts as the Serbian Social Affairs Minister and as president of the National Council for Cooperation, which coordinates Serbian government efforts with the Hague.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Serbian official hunting genocide suspect Mladic resigns – 29 December 2009

AP – Serbian official quits over failure to get Mladic – 29 December 2009

BCC – Serbia minister quits for failing to catch Ratko Mladic – 29 December 2009

EPOCH TIMES – Serbian War Criminal Investigator Steps Down – 29 December 2009

NEW YORK TIMES – Serbian Minister Quits War Crimes Team – 29 December 2009

By David Sophrin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MOSCOW, Russia – The killing of a Russian Orthodox priest last month was the responsibility of a Islamist militant group based in the Northern Caucasus region, according to the website of the separatist group’s leader.

Doky Ymarov, the separatist leader, declared on his website earlier this week that “one of our brothers who has never been to the Caucasus took up the oath of [Doky Ymarov] and expressed desire to execute the damned Sysoyev.”  The identity or affiliation of the shooter who killed Daniil Sysoyev, the Orthodox priest, last month in the Saint Thomas Church in Moscow has yet to be confirmed.

Ymarov went on to explain that the killing of Sysoyev was brought on by his distribution of pamphlets viewed as insulting to Islam.  “Those in the future who defame Islam and insult the religion of Allah will suffer the fate as Sysoyev.”  Ymarov has pledged to unite the various militant Islamist groups in the Caucasus region towards achieving the goal of establishing a separate nation governed by Islamic Sharia law.

Sysoyev had received past death threats for his efforts to convert Muslims to Christianity, as well as his books on his observations of the Russia’s responses to Islam’s presence in Russia, entitled “An Orthodox Response to Islam”.  Sysoyev also published a text encouraging Russian women against marrying Muslim men.

The death of Sysoyev marks the second death of a Russian Orthodox priest in the last two months.  Additionally, according to the Interfax News Agency there have been twenty-six Orthodox priests killed in Russia since 1990.  The Caucasus region has also seen the killing of a number of Islamic clerics in recent years.  The killings of religious leaders have heightened the tensions between the Russian Orthodox Church and the more than twenty million Muslims currently in Russia.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Islamists claim killing of Russian priest – 26 December 2009

RADIO FREE EUROPE – Militants Claim Russian Priest Slaying – 26 December 2009

VOA – Wave of Clergy Killings in Russia – 23 December 2009

TELEGRAPH – Russian priest who criticised Islam assassinated in his church – 20 November 2009

By David Sophrin
Impunity Watch, Reporter

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina – The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday that the national constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina discriminates against Jews and Roma and must be amended.

Currently in Bosnia only Muslim Bosniaks, Roman Catholic Croats, and Christian Orthodox Serbs are allowed to run for political office, while Jews and Roma are forbidden.  This ruling by the European Court of Human rights came about after two activists, Jakob Finci, a Bosnian Jew and the current Bosnian ambassador to Switzerland, and Dervo Sejdic who is of Roma ethnicity, filed a complaint in the Court in 2006.  Past attempts by both men to run for national office in Bosnia were thwarted by the constitutional provision that the Court ruled on.

Following the ruling, Finci applauded the Court’s action.  “I am delighted that the European Court has recognized the wrong that was done in the constitution 14 years ago.  The Bosnian politicians need to right the wrongs in the constitution quickly.”

Bosnia, as a party to the Convention that established the European Court of Human Rights, is now obligated to amend its Constitution.  In making its decision, the court noted that “authorities must use all available means to combat racism, thereby reinforcing democracy’s vision of a society in which diversity is not perceived as a threat but as a source of enrichment.”  Bosnia had previously agreed to modify its election laws to put them in line with the European Convention on Human Rights, a requirement for EU membership.

The Bosnian Constitution was drafted as a part of the broader Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the nearly four year war in the former Yugoslavian republic between Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian ethnic groups.  The constitution currently separates the population of the nation between “constituent peoples”, including Bosnians, Croats, and Serbs, as opposed to “others”, including Jews and Roma.

Past attempts to amend Bosnia’s election laws have had little success.

For more information, please see:

AP – Court: Bosnia discriminates against Jews and Roma – 22 December 2009

DW – European Court rules Bosnia’s constitution is discriminatory – 22 December 2009

EUROPEAN VOICE – Human rights rebuffs Bosnia – 22 December 2009

RADIO FREE EUROPE – European Court Condemns Bosnia Over Jews – 22 December 2009

VOA – European Court: Bosnia’s Constitution Unfair to Jews, Roma – 22 December 2009

MADRID, Spain – The lower-house of the Spanish parliament voted on Thursday to approve a bill that would legalize access to abortion.  Abortion has in almost all cases been categorizes as an illegal act.  This new legalization would all abortions to be legally carried out for the first fourteen weeks of the pregnancy without any government restrictions.

Currently in Spain abortions are only legal in cases of rape or out of concern for the health of the mother.  And while as a matter of law abortions are very difficult to obtain, in practice many of the 100,000 abortions that are legally performed in Spain are carried out under the mother’s health exception.  The bill will now be presented in the upper-house.  If it is approved there, this legislation will face a final vote by the whole parliament.

Legalizing a broader right to access to abortion has been a leading domestic priority for Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.  The current Socialist government under Zapatero was able to gather 184 votes in the lower house, Congress of Deputies, by eliminating the most controversial provision of the bill, which would have allowed any woman over the age of 15 the right to have an abortion without their parent’s consent.  In reaching the necessary number of votes, the Socialist government joined forces with smaller political parties in the lower house.

The movement towards legalization has been described by its leaders as a fight for women’s rights.  The Socialist Party’s spokeswoman Carmen Monton declared that this movement is about “…legislating women’s right to decide whether to be mothers.”

The Catholic Church and Popular Party (PP) have led the opposition to this legislation.  A leader of the PP noted at a rally outside the parliament that the legislation would “[banalize] the meaning of human life.”  The Catholic Church has declared that if abortion is legalized, anyone who participates in assisting abortion procedures may face excommunication.

A vote on this bill in the upper house of the parliament is expected to take place in early 2010.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Spanish lawmakers vote to legalise abortion – 18 December 2009

AP – Spanish lawyers vote to ease abortion law – 18 December 2009

EARTHTIMES – Spanish parliament approves liberalization of abortion – 17 December 2009