Ziguinchor during the year, many of them Court, mostly based on indictments videoed by the attackers. In May, several transferred from the Bosnia and Herzegovina conservative groups organized a large protest (BiH) state prosecutor, held Bosnian Serb in Dakar, calling for the criminalization of defendants accountable for war crimes, homosexuality in Senegal’s Criminal Code. including torture, murder, rape and sexual exploitation. Proceedings related to CHILDREN’S RIGHTS Srebrenica and Štrpci were delayed for over a Senegal failed in its obligation to protect year. children from ill-treatment. Hundreds of In January, the Court of Appeal acquitted thousands of Quranic students continued to two defendants accused of the inhumane be forced to beg for their sustenance, despite treatment, torture and murder of 69 civilians, the existence of a 2005 law against forced and the wounding of 12 in Lovas, Croatia, begging and child trafficking, and a 2018 bill and reduced the sentences of six others to to modernize Quranic teaching. below the legal minimum. In September, the same court upheld judgments awarding compensation to the SERBIA families of 193 prisoners of war and civilians murdered by the Yugoslav Army at Ovčara, Republic of Serbia Croatia, in 1991. However, compensation fell Head of state: Aleksandar Vučić below levels awarded at the European Court Head of government: Ana Brnabić of Human Rights. In August, following retrial, the International There was negligible progress in bringing to Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals justice those suspected of criminal sentenced former state security officials responsibility for past crimes under Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović to 12 international law. Police enjoyed impunity years’ imprisonment for aiding and abetting for ill-treatment. Media workers and NGOs murder as a war crime; and for murder, were attacked by the government and pro- deportation, forcible transfer and persecution government media. Discrimination against as crimes against humanity in BiH in April women, Roma and other ethnic minorities, 1992. LGBTI people and the socially vulnerable ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES was widespread. BACKGROUND In April, the Croatian president cautioned that Serbia needed to clarify the fate of missing The Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) Croats before joining the EU. Only seven strengthened its power in parliament, with no bodies of persons missing from Kosovo were effective opposition to curtail its dominance. returned, and neither party opened their The EU-US sponsored dialogue on Serbia’s military archives, as requested by families of normalization of relations with Kosovo stalled the missing in 2020. after resuming in June. Tensions rose in TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT September when Kosovo enforced their prohibition on Serbian number plates. In July, the Belgrade Centre for Human RIGHT TO TRUTH, JUSTICE AND Rights reported no progress in criminal REPARATION complaints by 40 people injured by police during demonstrations in July 2020, due to The European Commission in October the police’s failure to identify the officers contrasted Serbia’s weak record in responsible. addressing impunity against the support and In December the UN Committee against privileges the state afforded to convicted war Torture urged the authorities to implement criminals. Prosecutions at Belgrade High legal safeguards protecting detainees’ rights Amnesty International Report 2021/22 322