- World Report 2024: Serbia/Kosovo (hrw.org)
Independent journalists continued to be subjected to threats and intimidation in 2023. War crimes prosecutions remained slow, inefficient, and marred by delays. Attacks and threats against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and organizations continued. Serbia and Kosovo signed a joint declaration on missing persons in May as part of an EU-brokered normalization process, but relations deteriorated after clashes in northern Kosovo later that month linked to a contested election.
- Stjepan_Stevo_Filipović.jpg (Wikimedia Commons)
- Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia (Wikipedia)
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador who was illegally deported from the United States on March 15, 2025, in what the Trump administration called “an administrative error.” He was then imprisoned without trial in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a maximum security prison in El Salvador, despite never having been charged with or convicted of a crime in either country. His lawyers argue that his imprisonment is part of an agreement to jail U.S. deportees there in exchange for payment, and this was confirmed by United States senator Chris Van Hollen, who had spoken with Félix Ulloa, El Salvador’s vice president. The administration has defended the deportation in the press by accusing him of membership in the MS-13 gang, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. This accusation was based on a bail determination made in a 2019 immigration court proceedings that Abrego Garcia contested.
- Serbia (Wikipedia)
Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Southeast and Central Europe, located in the Balkans and the Pannonian Plain. It shares land borders with Hungary to the north, Romania to the northeast, Bulgaria to the southeast, North Macedonia to the south, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west, and Montenegro to the southwest. Serbia claims a border with Albania through the disputed territory of Kosovo. Serbia has about 6.6 million inhabitants, excluding Kosovo. Its capital Belgrade is also the largest city.
