Ombudsman Saša Janković, professor Vesna Rakić – Vodinelić, and Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection Rodoljub Šabić were awarded the “Dragoljub Stošić” Civil Courage Charter for 2015 today.
The decision on the winners was made unanimously by a four-member jury consisting of Olgica Batić, Ratko Božović, Predrag Koraksić and Danilo Šuković, stating in the explanation that it was about people who had dedicated their lives to common good - the fight for society and not for themselves.
As a member of the jury Danilo Šuković said at the award ceremony that they fought for morality, truth and social justice and against immorality, lies, and corruption.
As for Ombudsman Saša Janković, the explanation stated that he had borne a huge burden while serving as Ombudsman - defending those whose rights and dignity was threatened. In his work, he had been the victim of a political and media lynching and arrogance of those in power, due to disclosing unpleasant facts, the jury’s statement said.

Ombudsman Saša Janković and actor Nikola Kojo are this year's Ambassadors of the "Liceulice", it was announced today at a ceremony organized to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the association. Explaining their decision, the representatives of the association have pointed out that Janković and Kojo had supported current activities of the "Liceulice" magazine, particularly in protecting the rights of marginalized and stigmatized groups and individuals in our society.
The most successful vendors of the "Liceulice" magazine were also awarded at the celebration today. The magazine is published once every two months in 5000 copies and sold in the streets and public places through a specially organized network of street vendors.
Half of proceeds from the sale of each copy go to the vendors, while the other half is used to produce the following issues, for brand development, additional work on the integration of other vendors and various "Liceulice” philanthropic programs.

Following the procedures of control of the legality and regularity of the work of the Communal Police the Ombudsman conducted in regard to the body’s treatment of the "Istinomer" website’s team of journalists on 25 September 2015 and of the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (KRIK)’s team of journalists on 21 October 2015 , the Ombudsman sent a public recommendation for the dismissal of Nikola Ristić ,the Chief of Communal Police of the City of Belgrade. A public recommendation was sent due to an established responsibility for violations of the rights of citizens who have caused damage on a large scale and due to repeated refusal of cooperation with the Ombudsman in control procedures.
The Ombudsman found there were drawbacks in the way the Communal Police of the City of Belgrade treated KRIK’s team of journalists on 21 October 2015, the most significant of which related to the illegal seizure of objects and deleting images from the camera. The Chief of Municipal Police unlawfully prevented the recording of treatment given by the Communal police, while giving false information about the seizure of items during control procedure, which is in apparent contradiction with the content of audio-video recording of the event available to the public.

The Ombudsman welcomes the activities of the Ministry of Health and the Directorate of Biomedicine in acting on all the recommendations of the Ombudsman in connection with the storage of stem cells and initiating changes in regulations.
Expert Commission of the Republic for transplantation of cells and tissues emphasized, at the instigation of the Directorate of Biomedicine, the advantages of storing stem cells collected from the umbilical cord blood of the newborn in the national banks, of which the Management Board informed the public.
As stated in the act of the Board, the attitude is formed based on the recommendations of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies, which gives absolute priority to keeping stem cells to public (national) banks, while any other way of storing and donating stem cells is a personal right of each individual.
The Ministry of Health has submitted an initiative for amending the regulations to allocate part of the resources that parents of newborns pay into the budget of the Republic of Serbia as fee for obtaining approval for the export of cord blood to completion and opening of the public cord blood bank in Serbia at the Institute for Health Protection of Mother and Child of Serbia "Dr. Vukan Čupić".