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Organized by the Office for Human and Minority Rights of the Republic of Serbia, with the support of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, on June 28 and 29, 2018 at the hotel “Vila Breg” in Vršac, a Coordination meeting of representatives of competent state bodies and civil society organizations was held in order to establishing a mechanism for combating hate crimes in the Republic of Serbia. The aforementioned cross-sectoral meeting is a regular forum for discussion on issues related to hate crimes between state authorities and representatives of civil society organizations.

On the first working day, the meeting was opened by Vladimir Šoć, independent advisor at the Office for Human and Minority Rights and a national contact person for the fight against hate crimes, and Jelena Jokanović, representative of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, which are presented current activities of their institutions in the field of combating hate crimes, as well as the further plan of activities for 2018.

Introductory presentation was followed by the presentation of the present and planned activities of the participants of the meeting in the field of fighting against hate crimes were followed. In this part of the meeting Doc. Dr Aleksandar R. Ivanović, President of the Board of Directors of the Citizens Association Monitor, presented the activities that this association had undertaken in the previous period on the fight against hate crimes and announced the activities planned in the field for the future.

In the further part of the working meeting Jasmina Kiurski, Deputy Appellate Public Prosecutor Tamara Mirovic, Deputy Public Prosecutor and Biljana Sinanovic, Judge of the Supreme Court of Cassation, were presented the co-authorial publications under the title “Guidelines for the Prosecution of Crimes in Hate in the Republic of Serbia” whihc will in the following period be presented to the public.

On the second day of the meeting, the present participants, in the form of group workshops, were worked on the drafting of a draft protocol on the treatment of competent bodies in case of hate crimes aimed at ensuring the conditions for an efficient and comprehensive work of competent bodies involved in the detection, treatment and monitoring of the results of the procedures conducted due to hate crime, in order to improve the system of monitoring hate crime in the Republic of Serbia.