IDEAS Center: More Foreigners Arbitrarily Labeled as a Security Risk by Ministry of Interior

Police (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

The Center for Research and Development of Society IDEAS warned on Sept. 25 at increasingly frequent arbitrary decisions by the Ministry of the Interior during security checks involving  foreigners, refugees and asylum seekers, too, who are easily labeled as an "unacceptable security risk."

The Center says in a release that over the past two years, there has been a significant increase in the number of cases where foreign nationals are lightly characterized as "national security risks."

This seriously affects various types of immigration procedures, since, as a result, protection of  Syrian refugees might be revoked, asylum requests by individuals of Palestinian origin dismissed, and Turkish nationals who face persecution in their home country sent back, the Center has cautioned. Russian citizens opposing the war in Ukraine are often labeled a security risk, while similar measures have been taken against individuals from neighboring countries, including the actor and writer Fedja Stukan, denied entry into Serbia, IDEAS explained further in the release.

"Due to similar arbitrary decisions to declare a foreign national a security risks, IDEAS has already filed a constitutional complaint with the Constitutional Court of Serbia, while regular legal remedies are being exhausted in other cases," the statement reads.