

A picture of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hanging in Novi Pazar, southwest Serbia, October 11, 2017. Photo: EPA-EFE/DJORDJE SAVIC

Human rights organisations in Serbia have expressed concern over an agreement, which the Serbian parliament has yet to ratify, defining cooperation between Serbia and Turkey against terrorist organisations that endanger their national security.

Right activists are worried that it may encourage Serbia to deport without trial so-called Gulenists – supporters of the exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen – to Turkey. Ankara accuses the alleged Gulenists is backing a failed coup in 2016.

“The Security Cooperation Agreement, without doubt, contains provisions that give cause for concern,” Nikola Kovacevic, a teaching associate at the Law Faculty of Union University in Belgrade and an expert on refugee and migrant rights, told BIRN.

The agreement on security cooperation, which is already in parliament procedure and Serbian MPs are likely to adopt soon, was exchanged on October 7 during a meeting of the two interior ministers in Belgrade.

The agreement obliges the two countries to “prevent the activities of member and supporters of terrorist organisations which, on the report of any of the sides [countries], are presenting a threat to national security”.

It says Serbia and Turkey will also work closely and exchange data on the fight against human trafficking, organised crime, and drug smuggling.

The agreement is in line with Turkey’s increasingly important role in the Balkans. Turkish foreign policy activities, social-cultural and media projects as well as economic investments, have all grown rapidly in the region in the last decade.

But, at the same time, Balkan governments have also become caught up in Turkey’s internal and external political feuds.

Kovacevic also said that given the way Turkey’s penal code defines terrorism so broadly, so as to include political dissenters, the agreement could form the basis for their persecution on the territory of Serbia.

“The Serbian authorities must be aware that the implementation and effects of these agreements [may undermine] the human rights of Turkish political activists caught in the hands of the Serbian authorities,” he underlined.

Kovacevic was part of the team of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights representing the Kurdish activist Cevdet Ayaz before the UN Committee for Torture, CAT.

Ayaz was extradited from Serbia to Turkey in 2017. He is now serving a 15-year sentence in the notorious Silivri Prison in Istanbul, where Turkey holds many political prisoners.

In its final decision in September, CAT condemned Serbia for extraditing Ayaz to Turkey and said Belgrade had violated his human rights.

Although there are no other known cases of extradition from Serbia to Turkey, on September 14, the Turkish Ambassador to Serbia, Tanju Bilgic, thanked the Serbian authorities for their support in the fight against the alleged Gulenist threat at a joint event held in Belgrade with the Serbian Interior Minister, marking three years since the failed coup.

While many European states routinely refuse to extradite Turkish citizens to their home country because of the country’s poor record on torture and its partisan, politically influenced judicial system, Balkan states are more susceptible to Ankara’s lobbying.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has put strong pressure on Balkan countries to suppress NGOs and schools linked to the exiled cleric Gulen, whom Erdogan blames for the failed coup attempt in 2016.

Some states have resisted the call more than others. But this has not stopped Ankara from demanding that so-called Gulenists be brought back to Turkey, or from bringing them back by force on some occasions.