Monday, November 19th 2007
Activities
CHC provides assistance in an average of 2000 cases of violation of human rights each year, involving up to 5000 persons. The organization maintains a separation of voluntary work of its members and younger collaborates, and the professional work of the office; the members (including the Chairman, lawyers etc.) work on a strictly voluntary basis, and the employees are not members of the association. Thereby the organisation secures adherence to its main mission and prevents shift of goals towards shorter-term or narrower interests.
Besides the central office in Zagreb CHC also keeps 5 field offices (Slavonia /Osijek, Vukovar/, Karlovac, Knin, Split, Dubrovnik), by which it ensures coverage of the most critical areas of the country, notably the areas that were directly affected by the war 1991-1995. CHC is a member of International Helsinki Federation, Human Rights House Network, and Balkan Human Rights Network; it cooperates with Croatian judiciary, public administration and other relevant institutions, both in dealing with cases of violations of human rights and in developing new systemic solutions.
CHC results so far are the following:
- numerous cases of human rights violations dealt with each year (approximately 1500 new cases annually and at least 500 pending from previous years), based on interventions at responsible instances of the system, lobbying, actions in public, and cooperation with relevant authorities (the success rate is hard to estimate, because a part of the complainants whose demands are satisfied do not report back to CHC; based on cases reported, and indirect feedback from the authorities and other institutions, we estimate the success rate to 25 %);
- education for human rights for youth (240 high-school students in six years by the end of 2006), thereby compensating for the absence of the topics of human rights in Croatian curricula; education on human rights for young professionals / future decision makers in South-Eastern Europe – in cooperation with the Balkan Human Rights Network (180 participants at six schools up till now); the Summer Schools of Human Rights: education on particular issues of human rights for activists of civil society, journalists, MPs and civil servants in Croatia and other post-Yugoslav countries (more than 500 participants in 10 years);
- advanced education for judiciary (judges, public attorneys etc.), which was subsequently taken over by Judicial Academy; human rights manuals for the police and citizens, in cooperation with the Police Academy;
- advocating legislation relevant to human rights. The Freedom of Information Act was adopted as a result of advocacy of an NGO coalition gathered by CHC; the Act makes it possible to demand transparency and accountability much more efficiently. The draft Act on Political Parties was proposed to the Parliament, but was rejected; although formally unsuccessful, this campaign was well recognised in media, and effectively disclosed the resistance of the entire political elite (regardless of party affiliation) to transparency with regard to internal democracy, finances, distribution of electoral candidacies or influential positions etc.;
- monitoring of freedom of information and expression, defence of rights of journalists, as well as of persons whose rights have been violated by media (privacy, personal dignity, etc.);
- documentation of civilian victims of the military operations "Bljesak" ("Flash") and "Oluja" ("Storm") in May and August 1995;
- monitoring of several trials of war crimes in Croatia, both against Croat and Serb suspects.
In June 2006 CHC was selected by the EU Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia as the National Focal Point for Croatia, on the basis of its involvement in monitoring and protection of human rights, particularly ethnic minorities.
Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights cooperates with similar organisations in the region of South-Eastern Europe (other post-Yugoslav countries, but also Albania, Greece, etc.), as well as throughout Europe.
