On 2 June 2026, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously found that Serbia had violated the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and the right to an effective remedy by banning three protests concerning the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners in China. The protests had been scheduled for 17 and 18 June 2016, during the Chinese president's official visit to Serbia.
The significance of this judgment extends far beyond one association, one official visit and three prohibited gatherings. It raises the question of whether streets and public squares belong to citizens or merely serve as scenery for diplomatic protocol; whether the state protects peaceful protesters from possible violence or removes them so that they do not disturb powerful guests; and whether judicial protection should arrive while it can still make a difference or only years later, when the date of the protest has long since become a historical footnote.
From a Hypothetical Clash to an Actual Ban
The Serbian authorities justified the ban by claiming that Chinese nationals and supporters of the Chinese president might appear in the streets, organise counter-demonstrations and provoke a confrontation with Falun Gong practitioners, an association with only five members in Serbia.
The European Court, however, found no concrete and individualised security assessment in the case file identifying who had made threats, what the nature of those threats was, how many people were expected to attend or why the police would have been unable to secure the gathering. In the Court's assessment, the risk of a confrontation was speculative at best.
“A security assessment cannot be reduced to the following formula: people who disagree might appear, they might become angry, so the easiest solution is to ban the gathering of those who duly notified the authorities. That is not risk assessment. It is fortune-telling from coffee grounds, with an official stamp at the bottom.”
In the domestic decisions, a potential confrontation between supporters of the Chinese president and Falun Gong practitioners was presented as an almost inevitable showdown. Yet it is difficult to construct a serious security threat out of a few banners, peaceful meditation and opposition to the persecution of a community without a generous contribution from the imagination.
Even if the danger had been real, the European Court emphasised that the presence of counter-demonstrators was not, in itself, a sufficient reason to impose a ban. The state has a positive obligation to try to facilitate both gatherings, keep the participants apart, deploy sufficient numbers of police officers, adjust the route or propose another suitable location. A complete ban must be a measure of last resort, not the starting point.
Otherwise, a so-called heckler's veto is established: it is enough for someone to threaten a peaceful gathering, and the state, instead of confronting the threat, prohibits the gathering itself. The most aggressive actors are then allowed to decide who may appear in public space.
From Pride to EuroPride: The Same Mistake, a Different Minority
The same reasoning was used for years to justify bans on Pride marches in Belgrade between 2009 and 2013. The pattern was familiar: extremist groups threatened violence, while the consequences of those threats were borne by LGBTI citizens seeking to assemble peacefully. Instead of restricting those who announced violence, the state restricted those against whom the violence was threatened.
Something similar happened with the EuroPride march in 2022. The Ministry of the Interior initially banned the announced route, citing a risk of violence and serious disruption of public order. Following considerable domestic and international pressure, the march was ultimately held along a significantly shorter route and under heavy police protection.
The very fact that the gathering could ultimately take place demonstrates that the security risk did not necessarily require a complete ban. It required police work, planning and protection of the participants — which is admittedly more complicated than signing a prohibition order, but is also the job of a democratic state.
How It Was Handled in Neighbouring Countries
Serbia's response was not the only possible way to deal with Falun Gong protests during visits by Chinese officials. During Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Croatia in 2009, Falun Gong supporters held peaceful protests in Ban Jelacic Square and outside the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb. The gatherings were not banned.
According to the testimony of one participant, an unmarked bus belonging to the Police Academy was parked in front of the demonstrators for several moments as the Chinese delegation passed. The bus was then removed.
If the purpose of this manoeuvre was to hide the protest from the delegation's view, it was a remarkably literal attempt to solve a human rights problem through parking. The protest was not prohibited, but its message was briefly placed behind a large vehicle. This was a less severe measure than banning the gathering altogether, but it reflected the same discomfort with the possibility that a foreign official might see something they would not like.
In Bulgaria, Falun Dafa practitioners protested peacefully in 2008 during the send-off ceremony for the Bulgarian Olympic team travelling to Beijing. The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee recorded that the demonstrators carried messages calling for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in China. These examples show that it is possible to protect a state delegation, maintain public order and, at the same time, allow citizens to express a critical position. Diplomatic courtesy does not require the political sterilisation of public space.
A Small Community Does Not Mean Small Rights
Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, is described as a spiritual practice rooted in the Buddhist tradition, incorporating moral teaching, meditation and slow physical exercises. In Serbia, it is a very small community.
Small religious and spiritual groups are often exposed to prejudice precisely because the majority knows little about their beliefs. Unusual practices are easily labelled suspicious, and unfamiliar teachings dangerous. Terminology used by foreign authorities or tabloids is uncritically adopted, and the entire community comes to be seen as a security problem before any of its members has done anything unlawful.
Yet the enjoyment of human rights does not depend on whether a group is large, traditional, popular or sufficiently comprehensible to the majority. Freedom of assembly would have little meaning if it protected only views that offend no one. Organising a gathering does not require a certificate of social popularity, theological acceptability or diplomatic suitability.
The state should also not automatically import the classifications of other states. The fact that an organisation is banned in China does not turn its members into a security threat in Serbia. Domestic authorities must act on the basis of the Serbian Constitution, the European Convention and concrete facts, not on the basis of the political views of a foreign government.
Nor does it matter how one chooses to describe Falun Gong — as a religion, a spiritual practice, a teaching or a form of qigong. What matters for the right to peaceful assembly is that people assemble peacefully. Human rights are not a reward for belonging to a majority.
A Remedy That Arrives When There Is Nothing Left to Remedy
The second key part of the judgment concerns Article 13 of the European Convention — the right to an effective remedy.
The organisers used the available legal procedures, but the Administrative Court's decisions were issued after the dates for which the gatherings had been notified. A constitutional appeal filed in July 2016 was resolved only in February 2024 — almost seven and a half years later.
Such a decision may retrospectively confirm that the state erred, but it cannot restore the missed protest, the foreign official's visit or the moment at which the message was meant to reach the public.
“A remedy that arrives seven years after a banned gathering is not an effective remedy for that gathering. It looks more like an archival confirmation that a right was once violated.”
For this reason, the European Court requires that, when an organiser gives timely notice of a gathering, there must be a possibility of obtaining a final judicial decision before the planned date. In cases involving freedom of assembly, time is not a peripheral procedural issue. It is part of the right itself.
A protest against the visit of a particular official does not carry the same meaning if it is held eight years after that official's motorcade passed through the city.
The Judgment Does Not Concern Only the Past
The significance of the judgment is particularly evident in light of events from May 2024. According to a report by the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, six Falun Gong members and two of their relatives were held for up to 48 hours during a new visit by the Chinese president to Serbia, even though they had not notified or planned any public gathering. They were released after his departure from Belgrade. The pattern is not new: back in 2014, during a summit attended by the Chinese Premier, eleven foreign Falun Gong practitioners — from Bulgaria, Slovakia and Finland — were arrested and deported from Serbia after their protest was banned.
The Strasbourg judgment should therefore not remain merely a finding that Serbia erred in 2016. It requires a change in practice.
The police must draw up concrete security assessments based on verifiable facts. They must consider less restrictive measures before imposing a ban, including the separation of gatherings, additional security, route modifications and an appropriate alternative location. Courts must decide promptly, while a decision can still allow an event to go ahead. Threats from counter-demonstrators must lead to their being controlled, not to the punishment of peaceful participants.
Finally, relations with a foreign state, however "steel-clad" they may be, cannot carry greater legal weight than the Constitution and the European Convention.
Freedom of Assembly as a Test of Democracy
It is easiest to support freedom of assembly when we agree with the demonstrators, when they are numerous and popular and do not inconvenience anyone important. The real test comes when a group is small, unknown or unpopular; when its message irritates a powerful state; and when someone threatens to provoke an incident because of its presence.
A democratic state does not then ask how to make the protest disappear from the frame. It asks how to protect it.
The judgment in Serbian-Chinese Friendship Society FDH v. Serbia confirms a simple but often forgotten principle: the state is not obliged to guarantee that everyone will agree with the message of a gathering. It is obliged, to the extent reasonably possible, to ensure that the message can be expressed peacefully and heard.