On June 24, the Youth Initiative for Human Rights organized a study visit to Novi Pazar for a group of 30 activists from Serbia, Croatia, and Cyprus. During the visit, participants learned about the city’s cultural and historical landmarks, as well as examples of human rights violations committed against Bosniaks in Novi Pazar and the Sandžak region during the 1990s.

The group met with historian Džemil Trtovac, who spoke about Novi Pazar’s historical landmarks and the city’s experiences during the Second World War. Together, they visited several sites of historical importance, including Amir-aga’s Han, the Ras Museum, Zlatarska Street, and other significant locations. As part of the visit, the activists also attended a public history lesson on the suffering experienced in Novi Pazar during the 1990s, held near the local police station, an unmarked site of suffering. The public lesson on war crimes in Sandžak was led by Marko Milosavljević from the Youth Initiative for Human Rights. According to documentation collected by human rights organizations, more than 10,000 Bosniaks in Novi Pazar and other municipalities across Sandžak were subjected to so-called “informative interviews” and police torture.

During the 1990s, the Bosniak population in Serbia was treated by the authorities as a hostile group. Members of this minority community were subjected to killings, abductions, various forms of intimidation, torture, persecution, and looting.

This visit was organized as part of the project “Serbia at War / Serbia Resistant to Facts,” implemented with the financial support of the Belgrade office of ProPeace.