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Homo Hominy Ceremony

On the opening night of the festival Nataša Kandić, Executive Director of the Humanitarian Law Center, will receive the Homo Homini Award, which is given annually by People in Need to persons with outstanding merits in promoting human rights, democracy, and the non-violent resolution of political conflicts.

The Board of Directors of People in Need has decided to present the Homo Homini Award for 2003 to Nataša Kandić and her Belgrade organisation, the Humanitarian Law Center. She receives the award for her ongoing defence of human rights and her personal courage in bringing to light crimes agains humanity committed in the former Yugoslavia. By this decision, People in Need awards a constant resistence to nationalism, a determination to properly investigate war-crimes and to seek the conviction of those responsible.

The Homo Homini Award for 2002 went to distinguished defenders of human rights and democratic and religious freedoms in Vietnam: Thich Huyen Quang (the patriarch of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam), Thich Quang Doand (Buddhist monk, scholar and writer) and Nguyen Van Ly (Roman Catholic priest). In preceding years the prize has been awarded to Zackie Achmat of South Africa, whose great personal commitment helped launch a campaign to reduce the prices of AIDS drugs in Third World countries; to Ibrahim Rugova, the then-chairman of the Democratic League of Kosovo and now president of Kosovo, for his non-violent opposition to the Yugoslav regime; Cuban Christian dissident Oswaldo Payá Sardinas; and Russian State Duma deputy Sergey Kovalyov, for his work raising public opinion against the war in Chechnya.

Humanitarian Law Center

A regional non-governmental human rights and humanitarian law organization, the Humanitarian Law Center was founded in 1992 following the outbreak of armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. The HLC is based in Belgrade and has regional offices in Priština and Prizren in Kosovo, Novi Sad in Vojvodina (opened in 1997), and in Podgorica, Montenegro (opened 1999). Over 70 lawyers, attorneys, researchers, analysts and other dedicated professionals work for the HLC on a full- or part-time basis.

Since its founding, the HLC has researched killings, disappearances, camps, torture of prisoners of war, and the patterns of ethnic cleansing in times of armed conflict by interviewing witnesses and victims. Upon collecting a large body of documentation on war crimes, the HLC in August 1994 began cooperating with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague. And, as of June 1999, it has been cooperating also with Prosecutor's Offices in Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo, providing them with information and expert assistance with regard to war crimes trials.

Considering that the gathering of documentation on war crimes is of importance both for bringing to justice war criminals and researching the recent past, the HLC devotes major attention to archiving its material and creating conditions for the regional integration of such documentation.

The HLC plans to become an advanced center for the documentation and research of human rights violations during the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, and to initiate the establishment of similar centers in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. By pooling their efforts and documentation, these centers would make a significant contribution to establishing a regional approach to the past.

The HLC strongly advocates regional reconciliation through reconciliation with history, taking of responsibility for the crimes committed in the recent past, and restoring the human dignity of the victims whatever their ethnicity.

Since its founding, the HLC has made the human rights of ethnic and political minorities in Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo a focus of particular concern. When the armed conflict in Kosovo ended, the HLC continued its regular and systematic monitoring of the human rights of ethnic minorities, informing the public of its findings, and making recommendations to state agencies for the promotion of minority rights.

Contacts:
Humanitarian Law Center
Avalska 9, 11110 Belgrade
Serbia and Montenegro
Tel/Fax: +381-11-244-1487
office@hlc.org.yu
www.hlc.org.yu

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