Association “Monitor” has recently finalised a six-months long project “Fight against discrimination, promotion of intercultural dialogue and trust building” thanks to the grant received within the joint action of the European Union and Council of Europe “Promotion of diversity and equality in Serbia”. Key objective of this project, which was implemented in partnership with the Novi Pazar local self-government, was to contribute to enhancing intercultural dialogue, mutual respect, understanding and co-operation among all people who live at territory of Novi Pazar.

Over the last five years, this association implemented several educational and research-oriented projects which were dealing with issues of of inter-ethnic and inter-faith conflicts, discrimination and hate speech in the area of Novi Pazar, as well as in the region of Southwestern Serbia as a whole. According to the results of one research conducted among 89 respondents from the Southwestern Serbia and dominantly Novi Pazar, over 15% believed that it was justified to respond to the hate speech in the same way, while over 25% described themselves as victims of discrimination in their local community. On the other hand, national or ethnic (58,43%), religious (55,06%) and political affiliation (43,83%) were identified as the three most common grounds for respondents to feel harassed.

Taking into account current COVID-19 pandemics which limits possibilities for action in public space, Monitor identified an online environment as the most appropriate for interventions in the area of fight against discrimination and promotion of intercultural dialogue. That is the reason why production of ten video tutorials with experts coming from local community was at the heart of their project activities. These tutorials can also be integrated in further learning activities and programmes in these areas.

In the first video, legal expert Samir Lekic explains key definitions and legal framework in the area of anti-discrimination and hate speech. Special tutorials are dedicated to the aspects of criminal law protection, misdemeanour legal protection and civic law protection against discrimination and hate speech, while legal expert Almir Pruzljanin explains protection mechanisms before independent institutions and organisations. Experts in the area of interculturalism, trust building, development of counter-narratives and conflict management provide more details about these topics in special tutorials. The last tutorial is dedicated to the role of civil society organisations in the fight against discrimination and hate speech.

According to the data provided by the Monitor, there have been over 3,000 views of these tutorials on their YouTube channel. The tutorials are also distributed to primary and secondary school directors from Novi Pazar in order to support teaching process, as well as to local non-governmental organisations which can further use them as a useful resource during implementation of their educational activities.