NGOs invited to the working lunch on 19 March 2015 Mr. Ivan Knežević Deputy Director EUROPEAN MOVEMENT IN SERBIA Mr. Ivan Knežević was born in Nova Varoš, where he completed his elementary education as well as a grammar school. He graduated from the Faculty of economy at the University of Belgrade. He completed his master studies in Bologna, at the Management and policy of European integration in the Central-eastern European countries and the Balkans program. During his bachelor studies, he attended an undergraduate program of the Belgrade open school, as well as a master s program Transition and reconstruction, organized by the Alternative academic educational network. He is affiliated with the European Movement in Serbia since 2003, where he worked on numerous projects dealing with European integrations process. Since 2006, he has worked at the Serbian European integrations Office, Sector for analysis of economic aspects of Serbian accession to the EU. Additionally, he has worked on technical coordination of Office s administrative capacity building projects for European integration process. In the period of 2007 2010, he has worked at the Center for strategic and economic research Vojvodina CESS in Novi Sad, as head of project management sector. He was elected deputy Secretary General of the European Movement in Serbia in April 2010. His fields of interest include the economy and EU funds, regional development, cross-border cooperation, preparation and management of EU-funded projects. He is fluent in Italian and English languages.
MILAN ANTONIJEVIC YUCOM The Lawyers Committee For Human Rights (YUCOM) is an expert, voluntary, non-governmental organization whose members are legal experts engaged in promoting and advocating the idea of the rule of law and uphold of human rights, raising public awareness, conceiving, designing and leading civic initiatives, rendering legal assistance to victims of human rights violation, as well as developing co-operation with national and international organizations involved in human rights protection and promotion. YUCOM is recognized as an organization advocating human rights and promoting active participation of citizens in legal initiatives. It is very knowledgeable in the issue of dysfunctions of the judicial system. It has profiled itself and gained much recognition as a human rights defenders organization. Born in Belgrade on September 1975, Degree obtained at Belgrade University - Faculty of Law section for International Law Engaged in various legal aid and human rights and democratization related projects, such as: Legal Aid to victims of Political, Ethnic and Religious Discrimination, Hate Speech, Conscientious Objectors and Deserters in Serbia and Montenegro, Sexual Harassment, Coordinator of Project Strategy litigation of cases before international bodies-european Court for Human Rights (YUCOM so far won 2 cases before European Court on Human Rights), Security sector reform, Legal Status of foreign non-governmental organizations, the Hague Tribunal, Possibilities for war crimes trials in Serbia, Opening secret files, Anticorruption, Reinforcement of legal aspect of the Missing persons in Serbia and Kosovo, Human Rights Resource Centers, Tax policy towards NGOs. Also monitored and wrote reports and policy papers on trials before Special Court for War Crimes, Special Court for Organized Crime in Belgrade (2004-2005) and District Court in Vranje (2005, 2006). In 2007 worked on the film on trial for assassinators of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. Works on Impunity Watch project conducted parallel in Serbia and Guatemala. Within YUCOMs team in 2008 started establishing an Early Warning System for breach of Human Rights and Democratic values in Serbia. Holds a Certificate of Award issued by Freedom House Washington in 2003.
SONJA LICHT BELGRADE FUND FOR POLITICAL EXCELLENCE The BFPE belongs to the Network of Schools of Political Studies of the Council of Europe.. The BFPE mission is to enable the socio-political elite to obtain the additional knowledge and mandatory skills necessary for both a democratic transformation of society and for participation in European and Euro-Atlantic structures. BFPE's work has been dedicated to political education and capacity building of the actors who form, or will in the near future form, the highest-level political and social leadership, aiming to shape a human infrastructure that will solidify ongoing democratization processes, uphold the standards of human and minority rights above short-term political interests, and embody a spirit of cooperation and reconciliation with neighbours Sonja Licht, born 1947 in Subotica, Serbia, FPR Yugoslavia) is a sociologist and political activist. She obtained a diploma in sociology at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy. She is currently president of Beogradski fond za političku izuzetnost (Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence). The aim of this non-governmental organization is to educate young Serbian politicians, MPs and party leaders, in order to facilitate the transition toward democracy and EU membership. Sonja Licht is the founder and President of BFPE. Previously, for more than a decade (1991 2003), she was the president of another nongovernmental organization Fond za Otvoreno Društvo (Open Society Fund), a Serbian branch of George Soros funded Open Society Institute. Editors of the Vreme magazin elected Licht as Person of the Year in 2007. From 2008 to 2012 she was a member of Politika AD's managing board. She has excellent connections in international community. She is a recipient of several high prizes for her public work, including the Legion of Honour from the President of France.
MAJA STOJANOVIC CIVIC INITIATIVES Civic Initiatives has been founded in May 1996 by a group of prominent NGO activists that were involved in the anti-war movement and non-nationalist democratic opposition since 1990. Civic Initiatives founders analysed and evaluated the relative failure of democratic movements against Milosevic regime. A great need was recognized to create social, civil base that could sustain democratic changes by educating citizens about their rights, democracy, civil society and how to be active citizens in order to decide about own lives. CI mission is to strengthen civil society through education, promotion of democracy and support of active citizenship. CI strategy is that only by breaking down regional, national, ethnic, religious, gender and social barriers it is possible to build a stronger, more effective, and potentially more sustainable NGO community and thus to contribute to the development of the society in general. CI focuses its activities on non-belgrade NGOs, reaching out to smaller cities and rural localities throughout Serbia Maja Stojanovic, BA from Faculty of Media and Communications, succeeded Milenko Dereta as Executive Director at Civic Initiatives / Građanske inicijative. In the past she was Youth Program Coordinator at the same NGO and Director of the NGO Youth Initiative for Human Rights Education
NENAD DJURDJEVIC Forum for Ethnic Relations FER Forum for Ethnic Relations (FER) was founded in 1989 as a network of 110 academics and experts in national issues, ethnic relations and minority protection. FER is one of the most relevant nongovernment organization whose members are prominent scientists and experts from the region, Europe and the USA. FER s overarching goal at all times is the improvement of ethnic relations, prevention of ethnic conflicts, confidence building, conflict mitigation, and conflict resolution. The activities of FER are focused on the issues related to building the nation states (ethno-nationalism, national, ethnic, religious and cultural minorities and minority protection). In the year 1991. FER is officialy registered as a civil society organization based in Belgrade. So far, FER had an important role in building confidence, conflict resolution and reconciliation of ethnic, religious and cultural groups. Today, FER is one of the benchmark organization in the field of human rights, ethnic relations, minority rights protection, the strengthening of democracy and the institutions of the state. Nenad Đurđević was born in Belgrade in 1972. He received a BA degree in law from the Belgrade University s Faculty of Law. He subsequently obtained an MA degree in political science from the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary, where he specialized in the field of conflict prevention and ethic relations. He is one of the founders of the Students Union at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade, which is the first independent students organization, as well as one of the organizers of the 1992 students protest. In 1996, as a member of the Civic Alliance of Serbia, he was elected an MP at the Assembly of Belgrade s Zvezdara district, when he was on the Zajedno (Together) coalition s list. He became a member of the Main Board of the Civic Alliance of Serbia in 1997. From 1997 to 2007, he was involved in working for numerous organizations and on civil society projects. He was a coordinator of international relations for the people s movement OTPOR (the Resistance). He was also a representative in Serbia of the Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) from Princeton, USA, and a coordinator of the Belgrade based Center for Non-Violent Resistance (CNO). He is one of the authors of a draft Law on Anti-Discrimination and the Action Plan. As of January 2006, he worked as an advisor to Rasim Ljajić, Minister of Human and Minority Rights of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. From 2007 to 2011 he has been a Director of the Government of Serbia Coordinating Body for Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja Municipalities after which (2011-2012) he became a Director of the Directorate for Human and Minority Rights in the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, Public Administration and Local Self Government. Member of the FER Executive Board
NEMANJA NENADIC TRANSPARENCY SERBIA Transparency Serbia is the national branch of the global NGO Transparency international, a movement which works relentlessly to stir the world s collective conscience and bring about change in order to stop corruption, promote prosecution of corrupt leaders, hold companies accountable. Transparency Serbia is the leading Ngo in fight against corruption. His main areas of activity are: evaluation of National anti-corruption strategy implementation; monitoring of implementation of Conflict of Interest regulation and Code of Conduct; Public awareness campaign and lobbying for free access to information; Monitoring of implementation of Political Party Financing Law; Promoting business ethics. Nemanja Nenadic, born in 1972, graduated from the Faculty of Law at Belgrade University. As a representative of the Transparency Serbia, Nenadic participated in numerous international and national conferences and workshops dedicated to prevention and fighting corruption. He is an author of a number of papers and articles published in different international and national reports and reviews. He was a member of a group tasked to prepare the Anti-Corruption Strategy and Action Plan. He also participated in drafting several pieces of legislation in this area. As an expert he was engaged by several international organizations such as: Council of Europe, OSCE, EAR, Open Society Fund. Nenadic speaks English and Swedish
VESNA PETROVIC BELGRADE CENTRE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights is a NGO concerned with the advancement of theory and practice of human rights. It assembles persons of various professions and backgrounds jurists, attorneys, sociologists, economists, writers, teachers, students and entrepreneurs. The Belgrade Centre was established in 1995 and has since than being recognized as one of the most important and most influential non-governmental organizations in Serbia The principal goals of the Centre are advancement of knowledge in the field of human rights and humanitarian law, development of democracy, strengthening of the rule of law and the civil society in Serbia. The yearly publication Human Rights in Serbia, covering the whole spectrum of human rights, is a thorough and legally precise contribution to the Progress Report Vesna Petrović received her Bachelors degree in 1978 and her Masters degree in 1988 from the University of Belgrade s Faculty of Law. She passed the Bar Exam in 1982. She received Doctoral degree from the Law Faculty at Union University. Executive director of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights and associate professor of International public law on the Law Faculty at Union University. She also became engaged early on in human rights protection with the Yugoslav Forum for Human Rights, the first organization of its kind in Yugoslavia established 1986. From 1990. she was active with the Centre for Anti-War action, where spent several years leading a helpline for human rights victims. From 2001 to 2004, she held the position of Chief Cabinet Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia and Montenegro. As one of the founders of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, she has represented the Centre in numerous international gatherings, and has edited several books on human rights.
ZORAN SEKULIC AS MEDIA ASSOCIATION The AS-Media association is the biggest and most influential association of newspaper publishers in Serbia and a member of the European Publisher s Association. Zoran Sekulic has been a member of several working groups that were tasked with preparing the Media Strategy (he was the only member of the WG that represented the media sector and he was mandated by all existing media associations and journalist associations). He successively represented the print media sector in the government s WG that was preparing the finally adopted draft Law on Public Information. Mr Sekulic is one of the most knowledgeable journalists when it comes to media reforms and policies. He is also an independent personality, with no political ties to any of the political circles and is known to speak his mind. Apart from being the Secretary General of AS-Media Association he is also Director/owner of Fonet news agency