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The cover of the new report.

Governments in the Western Balkans should focus on improving human rights protection, especially for asylum-seekers and Roma, but also seek to improve media freedom and prosecute more war crimes, campaign group Human Rights Watch said in its annual report published on Wednesday.

“Western Balkans governments that aspire to European Union membership need to do a better job of living up to their human rights obligations,” said Lydia Gall, Western Balkans and Eastern Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“That includes effective accountability for war crimes, combating discrimination against minorities, and ensuring access to protection and humane treatment for asylum seekers and migrants,” she added.

In its 659-page ‘World Report 2016’, Human Rights Watch said that the spread of terrorist attacks beyond the Middle East and the huge flows of refugees spawned by repression and conflict led many governments to curtail rights in misguided efforts to protect their security.

Human Rights Watch criticised Croatia for its treatment of refugees transiting the country on their way to Western Europe.

“Croatia struggled to meet asylum seekers’ and migrants’ basic needs and at times closed border crossings from Serbia and restricted entry at its borders to certain nationalities,” the report said.

The rights group also highlighted what it said was limited progress in war crimes accountability in national courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo. War crimes prosecutors in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are underfunded and lack sufficient capacity to deal with cases, it argued.

“The Bosnian government remained slow to implement the national war crimes strategy, adopted in 2008 to improve the prosecution of domestic war crimes. Prosecutors still lack sufficient capacity and funding, particularly at the district and cantonal levels,” the report said.

“Few high-ranking former military and civilian personnel implicated in serious wartime abuses have been held to account in Serbian courts,” it added, saying that Serbia also still has “weak witness protection mechanisms”.

Media Freedom at Risk According to the Human Rights Watch report, journalists in the Western Balkans continued to face threats and intimidation. Local and national political authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina interfere with journalists’ work, subjecting some media outlets to bogus financial and other inspections, the report said. Journalists in Serbia face attacks, threats, harassment, intimidation, lawsuits, and political and other interference, it added. The report also noted that the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) came under criticism in January and February from Serbian government officials, including Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, who accused BIRN staff of being liars and the organisation of receiving money from the European Union i order to discredit the Serbian government. The criticism followed an investigative piece in BIRN alleging official mismanagement. Several pro-government news outlets then engaged in a month-long smear campaign against BIRN and its journalists, prompting condemnation by the European Commission and international media freedom groups.

Kosovo’s judicial system was criticised for inefficiency and manipulation by politicians.

“The administration of justice is slow, lacking accountability of judicial officials, and that judicial structures continue to be prone to political interference,” report notes.

According to the report, the Kosovo authorities at central and local levels also did not do enough to facilitate the return and reintegration of refugees and internally displaced people, mainly Serbs, who were expelled after 1999 conflict.

Twenty years after the Dayton peace agreement in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country remains divided and beset by “political sclerosis”, the report said.

No progress was made in implementing two European Court of Human Rights judgments, from 2009 and 2013, requiring Bosnia and Herzegovina to amend its discriminatory constitution, which denies members of minority groups the ability to run for high political office, it noted.

Other human rights issues in the Western Balkans highlighted in the report include a hostile climate for media and persistent discrimination against Roma people.

Discrimination against Roma in access to healthcare and education continued to be a problem in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Kosovo, and Roma remained vulnerable to forced and arbitrary evictions, Human Rights Watch said.

Progress in implementing strategies in Kosovo to integrate Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptian minority groups and assist people forced to return there from Western Europe was limited, it added.

The report also said that LGBT groups continued to face harassment and intimidation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo.