STRASBOURG – A group of 21 MEPs sent a letter to European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi in which they point out to “extremely serious” situation in Serbia in regard to constitutional and human rights, N1 reports.

MEPs wrote that the open-ended state of emergency imposed by President Aleksandar Vučić to tackle the coronavirus pandemic is a “severe and disproportionate” measure which restricts human rights, apparently not in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but to impede freedom of expression and free movement.

“The result of it is that several citizens have been detained for violating strict curfew provisions, while the real reason behind their arrests was criticism of government policy”, it is stated in the letter, with MEPs recalling that the Serbian government “wanted full control over the press, in order to broadcast only filtered, mostly fake information and defamation against the European Union” but following protest revoked the decree “which was used as pretext to arrest journalists”.

The article's full-text is available here.

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