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CNN Special Report

Still missing: Albanians seek relatives in Serbian jails 

February 7, 2000

By Steve Nettleton
CNN Interactive Correspondent

PRISTINA, Kosovo (CNN) -- The war in Kosovo has only just ended for Halil Matoshi. 
   Matoshi and hundreds of other Kosovar Albanians remained imprisoned in Serbia when Yugoslav forces withdrew from the province in June 1999 following NATO's 11-week bombing campaign. Their fate was left undecided by the agreement between Belgrade and NATO that ended the air strikes and paved the way for an international peacekeeping force to enter Kosovo. 
   Matoshi was never charged with a crime. Neither were many of his fellow captives. He was never allowed to plead his case in court. Then on January 28, after more than eight months of torture and beatings, Matoshi was released. He still does not know why. 
   Although he has returned to Kosovo, he not yet a free man, he said. 
   "We were just hostages, and we still are, because I am still there. I cannot be freed from that reality," Matoshi said. 

Many more unaccounted for

Matoshi's release is an exception. More than 1,800 Kosovar Albanians are known to be held in Serbian prisons, according to the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms in Pristina. But another 3,600 Albanians are unaccounted for, the council said, and the number still in jail may be greatly underestimated. 
   "A number of them may be dead," said the council's spokesman, Ibrahim Makolli, acknowledging that dozens of burial sites in Kosovo have not yet been inspected by forensic experts. "But we don't believe all of them are in mass graves." 
   Nearly 500 Albanians have been released since the end of the war, Makolli said, and they tell consistent stories of torture and of shortages of food and hygiene. 
   The prisoners are given no or little legal assistance, and those who actually go to court are usually sentenced for terrorist acts in sham trials, said Fred Abrahams of Human Rights Watch. 
   "The trials ... are replete with procedural violations. People don't have access to lawyers, they don't have access to the files against them, they're not able to present witnesses in their defense," he said. 

'I was ready to die'

For Matoshi, a journalist and painter, his story of horror began on May 21, 1999, when a squad of 70 to 80 Serb police swept into his village south of Pristina. 
   Officers dressed in camouflage uniforms stormed through his front gate and searched his house, demanding to know where he kept any money or weapons. Finding nothing of interest, the police told Matoshi to put on some clothes and leave with them. 
   "I was ready to die. Because I thought that Serbia does not need any more jailed Albanians," Matoshi said. "My wife brought me pants and a sweater. I didn't want to put them on. I had just sports clothes on, thinking that they would kill me immediately. I was thinking, why should I bring new clothes with me, because they are going to kill me? So I went just as I was." 
   The police escorted Matoshi outside. 
   "As soon as we reached the yard, they made me face the wall. They put a gun behind my head. The other [police], they were five or six yards away from the guy with the gun, they were saying, 'Shoot him, shoot him.' All I could think about was how my head would receive the bullet. That is what I was waiting for at that moment. And I didn't think about anything else because I was ready. I was just glad that my children, who were crying, and my parents were not seeing that." 
   But the Serbian police did not shoot him. They took Matoshi to a makeshift police station in a Kosovar Albanian house. There he was asked to sign a document he was not allowed to read. 
   "From that moment on, I was in their hands," he said. 

'They counted us by hitting us'

Matoshi and many of his neighbors were taken outside and kicked and beaten repeatedly by police. They were then ordered to squeeze into a small armored jeep. 
   "They put 24 of us in there. The first line had to lie down; the rest were piled up on top of them. The jeep was closed, and because it [was] armored, the air was cut off. We were scared we were going to suffocate. They told us they would take us to the border of Albania and kill us." 
   Instead, the police drove them to the Kosovo town of Lipljane, where they forced the prisoners to walk through a corridor of officers who beat them as they passed. 
   "They counted us by hitting us, one, two, three, four, five. Then the guard said, `Oh, I made a mistake, I have to start again.' And he started beating us again." 
   After hours of torture, the Albanians were too weak to stand. They were dragged two-by-two and tossed into a dark cell. 
   "There were a lot of people lying in that room. They didn't move at all, even though we were crawling on top of them. We thought that they were dead. They didn't move at all. We thought that we were climbing on top of dead people. But they were just beat-up prisoners, lying unconscious." 

'We saw death as our savior'

Matoshi and the other prisoners were kept in the Lipljane jail for three weeks, receiving smaller and smaller meals as time passed. 
   Ten to 20 Albanians were taken out every day and tortured, their screams echoing across the cellblock. 
   Anti-aircraft guns mounted around the jail went into action at night to fire at NATO warplanes. 
   "We started praying that a NATO bomb would fall on us and end everything. So it would just stop our suffering. We, at the time, saw death as our savior, not life," Matoshi said.
   On June 10, the day NATO peacekeepers entered Kosovo, Matoshi and his fellow inmates were bused to a prison in Pozarevac, a town in Serbia. Their treatment improved, but Serbian authorities took another two months to inform the Red Cross of their status. 
   "It was very difficult for us because from the day he was taken, we had no news," said Matoshi's wife, Ilirjana. "We heard rumors he was in Lipljane, but how could we believe them when we had all these reports of people being killed?" 
   She received confirmation from the Red Cross in early August that her husband was still alive. After repeated efforts, Ilirjana managed to visit Matoshi twice, in October and in December. 
   "After seeing him, I knew he would come back someday," she said. "Maybe after 10 years, maybe after 20 years, but I knew he would be here. I always had hope." 

'Our souls were just broken'

His wife may have had hope, but Matoshi's spirits sank to new lows, he said. 
   "In the last three or four months, despair started setting in, because we felt abandoned by all sides" -- by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, by NATO, and by the Kosovar Albanian political leadership that seemed powerless to help them. 
   Finally, in late January, a guard called Matoshi's name and asked him how long it would take him to get his things ready. 
   "I said I need 10 minutes. I didn't really need 10 minutes, because I didn't have anything. But I was glad because I had 10 minutes to say goodbye to my 60 friends in the room. And each and every one of them who was saying goodbye to me, with tears in their eyes, told me at the door, 'Halil Matoshi, please do something for us.' Because they as well as myself, our souls were just broken." 
   Greeted at the gates of the jail by a Red Cross representative, Matoshi first went to Belgrade, then to the Kosovo border, where his family awaited him. 
   "At first I thought he might not come," said Ilirjana. "I thought the Serbs might play a game and bring him to the border and go back. When I saw him, I couldn't believe it was really him." 

'I will not take vengeance'

When news of his return to Kosovo spread, relatives of other jailed Albanians arrived seeking news of their loved-ones. 
   "It was very disturbing," Matoshi said. "Many people came to me and showed me pictures of their relatives who are missing. I didn't know if they were alive or not. And it was difficult, because when they showed those pictures to me, I didn't have anything to say to them. I said only that we should hope together." 
   The fate of his fellow inmates has preoccupied Matoshi since he left jail. He said the international community should send an envoy to negotiate their freedom, or consider buying their release from the Yugoslav government. 
   But revenge is not on his mind, he said. 
   "A chance has been given to us to overcome the Balkan conscience, where in each and every moment someone has to take vengeance on someone else. I have suffered from Serbs, but I would not take vengeance on all of them. 
   "But it is difficult for people who lost families. How can we convince them? 
   "I will not take vengeance. I don't even think about it. But I can't also live beside these criminals. I would feel frightened to sit down at the table with criminals, be they Serbs or even Albanians." 

Please find and release Ukshin Hotin

Dibër, February 7 shkurt (Kosovapress)-Haki Torte, a 97 years man from Dibra town, has sent an open letter to Bill Clinton, United Nations Organization, Un Secretary General Kofi Annan, Tony Blear, European Council, International Red Cross Committee, International Forums of Human Right’s and Freedoms, and to all of those who can eventually help in the finding and the release of Ukshin Hotit and other Albanian missing persons and prisoners who are still kept in the Serb jails.

Honored Misters,

I am the oldest alive person of Dibra, a town that stretches between Albanian and Macedonia. Sometimes when walk through the center of the town it does not happen to meet any people of my generation. It was very hard for me to live such a long time and to see all the sufferings through which my people went through. 
Since the time I was grown enough to understand who were my parents, to recognize them, I was the witnesses of all the suffer and pain of my people, through years and decades, caused by the Serb conqueror.
In spite of the hard weight of the years, which I’m holding in my shoulders, during the last war in Kosova I stand all the day along in front of television, the war that was imposed by Serbs who did genocide towards the innocent civil Albanian population in Kosova, towards our brothers and sisters. By starting the NATO’s bombardment, You, misters have been those, who knew exactly what was going on, you were those who wanted to help this people who were in desperate need for you. Thanks to your engagement, the people of Kosova survived. You forced the enemy to leave Kosova, that enemy whom I know very well from the time I was very young. At that time, it was the year 1912, the Serb criminals forced us to leave our homes located in Dibra town, and to do to Tirana.
We lived there for six years, to escape from the Serb paramilitaries hands who could not differ the grown people from the babies. It was enough to be an Albanian, so that you could get killed immediately by them.
After six years we returned back to our homes. The hole town has been burned. I can remember very well only the ashtrays of everything what we used to have before. From 26 thousands of Albanian residents, remained only six. So, you could see only smoke and blasé and thousands of victims killed by Serbs. In that war the Albanian women have fought, too. All fought together, because the Serbs wanted to go on occupying the territories, to go and get the sea of Durrwsi( city in Albania) because that was the wish of the Russian cars. 
The same barbaric methods have been used in the last war in Kosova. Atrocities, massacres, burnings, the violated deportation, the same expelling of Albanians from their homed in which they have lived for centuries. This was more than enough for the countries of Europe and the world to understand, a hundred years later what was going on. And NATO, made the Serb beasts go out from Kosova. Since their first coming in Balkan, the Slavic- Serbs killed Albanians and expanded " their " territories by occupying other lands from Albanian people who were here from the beginning of the human’s history. I have here a copy of a map, which my son who is journalist have found in Russian encyclopedias. This map shows the borders of Serbia in 1987, it was only Belgrade with it’s district which was represented in that map of Serbia.
In my entire life I have never prayed, begged anybody for anything, except to God. But, today I am begging you to find and release Ukshin Hoti and other Albanians who are kept in the horrifying prisons of Serbia.
I used to know Mr. Ukshin Hoti, as far as he was my son’s friend, Rexhepi, who is journalist by profession. During 1970, he has been several times our guest, the honored guest of Dibra Town. From what I’ve understood during the time I stayed with him I found out that he is very smart, very modest and always with the smile on his face. Even as a guest, he spent the time reading. Everybody could realize that that person could not hate anybody, on the contrary during the conversations we shared together, at him, I saw a very opened man always worried with a big concern about the issue of Albanian people. He used to be very closed person to everybody. Even you see him for the first time , someone creates the impression that he or she has known him for a long time. He was right here in my heart and I loved him as he was one of my children. 
The wise man Ukshin Hoti was close to everybody. He was an excellent student while he graduated from the Political Sciences faculty of Zagreb. He told me that he could not finish the doctor’s studies because the professors of Zagreb and Belgrade created an un-passing obstacle for him. Later on, in 1994, I have heared that he was arrested by the Serb police. My family and me were very worried when we saw him beaten in the Serbian television. In that time I could not sleep for nights and days. I was very disturbed for his destiny. I followed his fanny trial from he was sentenced to 5 years in prison. Yes…, they imprisoned the angle anly because he wanted freedom for all. He fought for the values of humanism. During the war, Krusha e Madhe, his hometown has been burned to ashes.
The Serb militaries and paramilitaries has killed Ukshin’s father in front of his house. They killed his brother Ragip, too, but in other circumstances-in the honor field, as a KLA fighter, struggling for freedom. Now Ukshin’s family members who remained alive such as his mother, two of his sisters Mirvete and Resmie, and his youngest brother are very concerned about the destiny of him. It was written and it was spoken that Mr. Ukshin Hotin was released on May 17 1999, one day before he finished the serving and suffering sentence in prison. Since the day of his release nobody knows anything about him.
So, I, as the oldest person in this area, following the attempts of the people that are undertaking in Kosova, as well as in Albania, I take the courage to write to Mr. Clinton, to Mr. Anan, to Mr. Blair, to the Red Cross Committee and to other Human right’s forums, appealing to them to do everything they can for the release of Ukshin Hoti and other Albanian Political prisoners that are still being kept in the Serb jails through out Serbia.
Taking such steps ahead, and the contribution for the release of all of those who are kept as war hostages in the Serb prisons is the same as to heal a little bit the opened wounds of the family of Mr. Ukshin Hoti and other families who are very worried about the lovers, who are being held under the permanent tortured while some others are being brought home in coffins. Please, in the name of Humanity, in the name of democracy, please help me die in peace, make me having fulfilled my last desire for this life. I know that you can do miracles. With what you did recently for Kosova’s people, you told the world that You can make people survive. In the end of this century, You stopped the ethnic cleansing.
The Albanian people will never forget you for what you did for them. You are those who can help us release the prisoners again. Please put an end to the suffer of more than 7000 families who have their lovers in the Serb jails. Use our authority and help us. I wish you good health and success in your human work!

Dibër, February 7, 2000. Haki Torte-Dibër

HUMANITARIAN LAW CENTER COMMUNIQUE

Fear and violence main reasons for leaving Kosovo

7 February 2000

By the end of January, displaced persons from Kosovo had submitted to the Humanitarian Law Center 1,327 complaints against the violation of their property rights.  The HLC started receiving these complaints on 4 October last year, in the expectation that an ombuds office would be established in Kosovo with a mandate to consider complaints lodged by individuals against the violation of property rights.

Twenty percent of the complainants said they were made to leave their apartments or houses under threat of death or were forcibly evicted by unidentified ethnic Albanians, who were most frequently armed and wearing Kosovo Liberation Army uniforms.  This group of displaced said they were subjected to physical and psychological abuse even before being thrown out of their homes.  Many called the Kosovo Force or the UN Mission in Kosovo police for help but neither were able to provide them with adequate protection.

Eighty percent of the displaced said they left their homes and property and fled to Serbia or Montenegro out of fear of reprisals, being murdered or abducted, lack of confidence in KFOR, and a feeling of personal insecurity after the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army and Serbian police force from Kosovo.

  THE PRISONER PROBLEM-AT AN IMPASSE

 Shemsi Musliu is from a small village near Gllogoc. He recently spent six months in the prisons of Lipjan, Kosova, and Pozhrevac, Serbia. He was fourteen years old at the time of his arrest opn May 28, 1999.

 “I can’t forget the bus trip from  Lipjan Prison to Pozharevac. We went from 7 am. to 11 pm in handcuffs the whole time without food or water. All the way, the guards tortured us on the bus. They beat us. They made us sing nationalist songs. When we crossed into Serbia, they said,’“From this day on, you are not Albanian. You are Serb.’
 I was so tired and so afraid. I have scars here from the handcuffs. I had no shoes on when the police took me from my yard, and my feet and legs were very cold. I lost half my weight in the prison. We were always hungry. I am worried now about Plerrat, who is sixteen. When we were released, he was left behind. He’s still there. I’m afraid he might die there like my neighbor did.”

 Each family in this village has a story to tell, even now, seven months after the war. They talk about arrests, beatings, unexplained releases, torture, disappearances, and now one man, a father with six children, has been brought home dead from Pozharevac. His body arrived January 17th. The village will spend two weeks mourning his death. They buried him in a snowstorm. The men come to pay their respects and gather in one room. The women meet and cry in another. 

His daughter, Fikrie Mufatri, age 26, is angry.
 “My father was a good man. He wanted all of us children to be educated. That was important to him. We hired a lawyer in Belgrade. He went and saw my father once in the prison, and told us that he was cold and not well. We sent his medicine in a package, but he didn’t ever receive it. He was dead for a week before anyone called us. ICRC brought us his body.
 We had gone to every demonstration and signed the petition, but no one helped us. Now people are dying in prison. Is this what UN MIK wants? Why does Kouchner do nothing? If you want to have the prisoners returned this way, dead, then continue to do nothing. If you can’t do anything, then why are you here? Leave us.”

 Everyone in the room, all the other mourners, agree with her. So do the Albanian politicians, who believe that normalization in Kosova is impossible until the prisoner problem is resolved. Bardhyl Mahmuti, vice president of the Party of Democratic Progress of Kosova (Thaci’s party) has visited many families of prisoners, including the Kurti family, who have a twenty four year old son in Nis. Mahmuti was imprisoned during the 1980’s and spent four and a half years in Pozharevac, where Shemsi and nearly thirty other minors were held for six months in the same cells with the men. According to Mahmuti, 
 “The international community shows absolutely no understanding of this vital issue. In our discussions with Ambassador Holbrooke, he has assured us that the U.S. government is aware of the problem and Rep. Engel has started a prisoner-adoption program in the US Congress. But there has been almost no interest and certainly no action from the Europeans.”

 Mahmuti describes the prisoners as Milosevic’s hostages, who is holding them in his own “home.” International official say to the  Albanians when they raise the issue, that the sovereignty of Serbia takes precedence over this criminal action, and they cannot intervene in a sovereign state. Mahmuti doesn’t believe it. Didn’t Jimmy Carter intervene in an attempt to rescue American hostages in a foreign country? He sees the passivity of the West to help the prisoners as closely tied to their failure to vigorously pursue war criminals. He believes that unless issues like this are vigorously pursued, those who have suffered collective trauma from the war in Kosova cannot move on.. “The people cannot heal overnight from this. There will be no normal life here until these two issues of international justice are settled.”

 Frustration with UNMIK on the prisoner issue is widespread. At a recent demonstration for the prisoners held in the bitter cold and in a snowstorm, nearly one thousand people gathered in Prishtina, while Kouchner and other leaders went into a reception for the opening of a bank nearby, without stopping to address the crowd. Insensitivity such as this is quickly noted by the Albanian families and is seen as further proof of the indifference of the UN officials to the their problems. A recent in-depth report by the International Crisis Group, available on their web site at www.crisisweb.org, confirms the deep frustration Albanians feel at this time. Some families feel they are being forced to pay thousands of deutchmarks for the release of family members through very risky deals arranged with Belgrade and Nish lawyers.

 UNHCHR officials report that conditions in Pozhrevac prison are tolerable—but in Serb prison terms that apparently doesn’t mean much. Bardhyl Mahmuti describes Pozharevac as “absolutely dehumanizing.” Sixteen year old  Plerrat Isuf, just sent a letter to his family begging for food, saying that he is always very hungry. Families are afraid their relatives may die of starvation and torture is ongoing. 

Of the thirteen prisons that ICRC has been allowed to visit, Sremska Mitrovica is reported to be the worst, and the ICRC has only visited it once since July, 1999. According to Per Oyven Semb,a UNHCHR official in Prishtina and a member of the UNMIK Committee of Missing and Detained, ICRC has not been back to visit Sremska Mitrovica because they are not allowed to talk to prisoners alone, only under supervision of the guards. So they don’t go at all. 
 In Sremska Mitrovica, prisoners are fed a small amount of bread per day. Those few who have been released are emaciated and very weak. A thirteen year old boy is detained there. Some of the prisoners there were also in the Dubrava massacre in May, 1999. They were wounded in the shooting and have not received any medical care. Requests to see a doctor are met with beatings in all the prisons. Families still are unable to send packages that will be received. Most prisoners do not have lawyers and have only seen ICRC once or twice in seven months. Families cannot afford lawyers and many feel that their relative has done nothing wrong and therefore should not have a lawyer.

 Shukrie Rexha is the director of the Prishtina-based Association of Political Prisoners. For over three months, she has also served on the UNMIK Committee for Missing and Detained. She reports that the committee, chaired by Barbara Davis of UNHCHR in Belgrade, has no concrete ideas, no basis for action. They still have found no way for families to visit the prisons, nor even determined  a secure way to send packages. They meet only to share information. Shukrie wonders why the group exists. “Is it just for show?”

 Per Oyven Semb of UNHCHR says that the UNMIK committee meets to share information, with the goal of releasing all detained persons including Serbs, Roma, and Montenegrans. He is not particularly dissatisfied with the meetings, but feels his office is vastly under-funded. UNHCHR visited Decan with the Albanian prisoner group in August, 1999, and documented three hundred prisoner cases, but they have not been out since due to lack of funding. He is still waiting for a database of prisoners from ICRC, but admits that they probably won’t ever release their list because to do so is against ICRC policy. He needs more staff, desktop computers, and a fax machine. He also needs vehicles that are relatively functional. He serves double duty as Kosova’s minorities ombudsman and feels that the Albanians constantly discriminate against Roma and Serbs, whose lives here he feels are unbearable. There is little to no contact between his office and the Association of Political Prisoners. Shukrie was not informed of a large meeting in Prizren on January 29, 2000 held by UN officials to discuss security and the prisoners.

 The situation for the families of the missing is even more bleak, according to Kosovarja Kelmendi of the Humanitarian Law Center’s Prishtina office. There are 650 Serbs reported missing from the beginning of the conflict. Her office has finished documenting about 2,000 cases of missing Albanians. One father had lost four sons and comes often to see if there is any information. Another family in Fush Kosove lost sixteen men in one April night. In a village near Gjakova, five hundred men have disappeared without a trace. In one village near Gllogoc, seventy men and thirty six minors are missing. One father, Beqir Prokushi, found the clothing of his thirteen year old son, but it was on the body of a seventy year old man.

 Kelmendi, daughter of human rights lawyer, Bajram Kelmendi who was killed in the first day of the war together with his two sons, says that human rights lawyers in Belgrade are responsible for any releases of prisoners, not the UNMIK committee or other international organizations. These lawyers are operating at great risk to themselves to bring what justice they can to the Albanians. She states that the plight of the Albanian prisoners has been remarkable in how it has brought together Serb and Albanian lawyers, women’s groups, and journalists in an effort to preserve lawfulness in the region. Visiting journalists, however, choose to focus on the revenge attacks of Albanians instead, which have tapered off sharply now that Kosova is under the supervision of General Rheinhart rather than Michael Jackson.

 Considering that Albanians consider the resolution of the prisoner problem their top priority, and Albanian politicians state that they raise the issue at every single meeting, the fact that only a committee is assigned the task of freeing the prisoners is rather astonishing, especially when the families see this as a matter of life and death. The lack of pro-active staff with adequate resources for travel, documentation, lawyers, advocacy, and access to top level international officials who are the only ones who can pressure Belgrade has created a stagnant impasse in Kosova and a major block in moving the issue forward. It has seriously undermined UNMIK’s crediblity with 7,000 Albanian families, their friends and relatives. In other words, almost everyone in this tiny province.

For instance, a transfer prison set up in Kosova  for ill prisoners and the four hundred who have criminal convictions to be moved to  is a priority, but there is no one assigned to develop this plan, nor any funds. And no one seems to know who would supervise this site—KFOR? UNMIK police? Reportedly, neither group is interested. Why do they have a choice? Otherwise it seems that the words of Per Oyvend may come true—“that there are some problems without any solution.”

It is time for international officials to recognize that this is a matter of the utmost urgency. Ignoring it, refusing to deal with the problem except by committee will produce not results. Indeed, it is having the opposite effect. A top leve, international l delegation must be formed, authorized and funded at once. These prisoners, whatever their reason for being detained (and ninety per cent of them were detained on police warrants without any charges at all) should be transferred to Kosova immediately. Serbia has no jurisdiction over their cases. Their removal to Serbia at the end of the war was a gross violation of the Geneva Conventions, which all countries involved in Kosova have co-signed.

In the words of fifteen year old Shemsi,

“Why does no one help us? The conditions in these prisons you can’t imagine. Not to be able to wash, to have no heat or food. They will die from no food and from the torture. They need doctors but can’t have them. Why won’t Bill Clinton help? My neighbor died from the torture there. I’m sure if they continue to stay in those prisons, not all of them will make it back alive.”

One of the latest prisoners to be released claims:

Selman Hysen Osmanaj was born December 25 1968, in the village of Trubohovc, in the district of Istog. His family lives in Trubohovc. He is in the last year of his studies in the faculty of Engineering in Prishtina University. He was arrested May 8 1999. He was taken from the column on the road that links Gjurakoc Klinë, in the village of Zallq. He stated, in an interview in Prishtina on December 8 1999:

"In the afternoon of May 8 1999, 93 men from ages 17 to 50 were arrested by the Serb police, militaries, and paramilitaries. They loaded them on a track and sent them to the prison of Gjurakoci, where we were kept for two nights until May 10 1999. During those two days we were mistreated the entire time. The inspectors interrogated us. Meanwhile, the Serb police and others beat us with police batons and baseball bats and kicked us. I felt pain everywhere in my body. Then they placed us in two basements. In one of them were forty-two men and in the other, fifty one men. Five by five they took us and they tortured us in another office. Also, the guards and the Serb police were separated into two groups, one on either side of us. We were in the middle. I could here my friends screaming while they were being tortured. It seemed to me that it was easier to go through that by myself than to hear something like. I can remember that I fainted twice from the torture, and that I experienced a psychological breakdown. I can also remember the beginning of my arrest, when they put the knife to my throat and said: ‘We will release you if your family brings us gold jewelry.’ They stole any money that they found on us. 

On May 7 1999, some people were executed. I don’t know how many. 

On May 10 1999 they put us in a bus and sent us to the prison of Peja. While we were getting off the bus, we saw two columns of uniformed Serb police who were waiting to beat us. They tortured us severely. They forced us to sign two papers. One of them was blank, and the other one explained that we were accused of terrorism. Then they sent us to some cells, dimensions 1.5 by 3 meters. Six persons were placed in each cell. On June 3, they brought us to prosecutor Radomir Gojkovich, who had been working in an office close to the prison. On the way to the court the guards threatened me with lynching while I was being interrogated. These same guards were my court translators.

In the prison of Peja, the food was without any calories. We ate just a quarter of a piece of bread made especially for us. All of us needed medical treatment but no one would dare to ask for help because we were under constant torture. During the entire time, each day and at every moment, we heard the screams of other Albanians being tortured. The guards picked people to torture at random. After one month, they sent us to take a shower, to the bathroom for the first time because we had scabies disease. Even during this time, while we were trying to clean our bodies, we were tortured. In my mind remained a Serb name, Nesha. 

On June 11 1999, at about 4 in the morning, they ordered us to wake up, and they tied every two people together. We were loaded on nine buses and then taken in the direction of Serbia. They forced us to sing Serb nationalist songs. They beat us all the time while one of my friends, Skender Shabaj, from the village of Nabërgjani, was forced to eat soap. Another prisoner was forced to swallow a lit cigarette. When the buses arrived in Serbia, the police and the paramilitaries stopped the buses and called out to many civilians to torture us. I was beaten, but more than in my body I felt pain in my soul because I was very astonished at how human beings could do something like this. Then, I think that about two hundred prisoners were taken to the prison of Leskovc. I was one of those who were placed in this prison, in the room 6, then afterwards, room 5. I heard there on the same day that one of my cousins, Rexhep Demë Mushabaj (born 1953), who had been mute, was tortured until he fainted. A doctor and two guards came and took him. Since that day none of the prisoners knew any four information about him. There were 19 prisoners in our room, four meters by meters in size. At first, we slept on the floor, but later they brought six thin pads and ten blankets. The food was horrible. We had to share four spoonfuls of marmalade for nineteen people. In the beginning, the guards in Leskovc were the same ones who had always worked there. They were later joined by the guards who had worked in the prison of Peja. 

On Monday, August 2 began the most intense torture yet. It was the first day that we were brought outside to walk. The leader of the guards was a Serb uniformed policeman, Ivica Vlakovich, from Peja. They beat us on our heads and on our veshkë. They hit us with their fists, kicked us, beat us police batons. We were all exhausted when we returned to the room. Almost none of could move at all because of the pain. Those who demanded medical help were tortured again. These prisoners told me that they had been tortured inhumanely, worse than the first time. I can remember that I was trying to stand on my feet while I heard the screams, but I could not see anything. I could see only darkness. The others told me afterwards that I fainted. On September 1 1999 they gave us a little bit more food, but the cook was the same. This was the month when the packages started to come from our families, but the guards took most of the good things such as cheese, butter, and meat. 

In October some people were sent to trial. I think I was released in the absence of facts because as I have told you before, I was just taken from the crowd. I had a lawyer since November 8 named Vukica Momqilloviq Cvetkoviq, from Leskovc. My family paid 400 Deautschmarks (DM ) on the say that I was released. Five of my friends remained in our prison cell. On November 14 1999, twenty-five prisoners were released from the prison of Leskovci. I was one of them. I cannot forget the moment when they sent me to the corridor and told me that I would be released. They put us in a minibus, and they brought us to the border. The International Red Cross Committee was waiting for us there, so they brought us here to Prishtina. I could not imagine that I was living again. I had forgotten the last time when I had the chance to have a book in my hand, a newspaper, or anything to read. I see and I breathe freedom here, but I cannot enjoy this while my friends are suffering in that hellish Serb prison."

Intervista e dhënë në SHBP më 8.12.1999, Prishtinë

# HLC COMMUNIQUE: KOSOVO ALBANIANS ACQUITTED IN POZAREVAC
# Serbia drops charges against four Kosovo Albanians (Reuters)
# Kosovo Albanians freed from Serb jail (BBC)
# Process against OSA members started (Free Serbia)
# Kosovo Albanian Endjulu Prekaj sentenced to a 13 year prison term (Free Serbia)

HUMANITARIAN LAW CENTER COMMUNIQUE
KOSOVO ALBANIANS ACQUITTED IN POZAREVAC
6 January 2000

 
Judge Nikola Vazura of the Pozarevac District Court acquitted four Kosovo Albanians charged with terrorism for lack of evidence.  After 17 months in custody, the four men were taken over by the International Committee of the Red Cross and returned to their homes.
Ekrem Veselaj, Haziz Krueziu, Eshref Mazreku and Hilmi Perteshi, all from Suva Reka Township, were arrested on 6 July 1998 and charged with participation in an attack on a column of police vehicles at Donje Krusice village, Kosovo.  At the trial, three of the defendants stated that they were stopped and arrested without cause at a police checkpoint.  The fourth was taken into custody at the Prizren hospital where he was receiving treatment for a broken leg. 
The Court found that the results of the “paraffin glove” test done during the investigatory proceedings did not prove conclusively that they had fired at members of the Serbian police force. 
The Humanitarian Law Center welcomes the ruling of the Pozarevac Court, which was rendered solely on the basis of legal principles and standards.  It urges all courts in Serbia to demonstrate equal professionalism in adhering to the law and justice, and to disregard attempts to exert political influence on courts of law.

Serbia drops charges against four Kosovo Albanians 

12:14 p.m. Jan 06, 2000 Eastern 

BELGRADE, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Four Kosovo Albanian men, held in Serb jails since July 1998 on terrorism charges, were freed on Thursday after the case against them was dismissed, a human rights lawyer said. 
     ``I was very surprised. It was a rare case really because they were released of all the charges,'' said Radovan Dedijer, a lawyer from Belgrade's Humanitarian Law Fund, which attends the trials of some 2,000 Kosovo Albanians now jailed in Serbia. 
     ``Normally they issue a conviction at least to cover the time already spent in jail,'' Dedijer said by telephone. 
     The four men were escorted back to Kosovo by the International Red Cross, the fund said. 
     They were arrested on July 6, 1998 and accused of participating in an attack on a column of Serb police vehicles in the Kosovo village of Donja Krusica. 
     Police were targeted by separatist Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas during a year-long conflict with the security forces which preceded last year's NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia that forced Serb police and troops from the province. 
     The defendants denied the charges, saying police picked them up at random. One said he was arrested while in hospital. 
     The fund praised the decision by the court in Pozarevac, home town of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Dedijer said the judges were Serbs from the Kosovo town of Prizren. 
     It also appealed to other courts in Serbia not to let politics influence their decisions. 
     Dedijer said dozens more trials were due in the coming weeks, but that it was difficult to predict which if any of the defendants would be freed. 
     One case soon to come to court involves 155 men from the western Kosovo town of Djakovica who human rights activists say were picked from refugee columns during the air strikes, when hundreds of thousands of Albanians fled a Serb campaign of terror. 

Copyright 2000 Reuters Limited

Thursday, 6 January, 2000, 23:33 GMT 

Kosovo Albanians freed from Serb jail 

Human rights activists in Belgrade say four Kosovo Albanians held on terrorism charges have been freed for lack of evidence. 
     The four were arrested two years ago and accused of taking part in an attack on a Serbian police convoy in Kosovo, but they denied the charges, saying police had picked them at random. 
     Over two-thousand ethnic Albanians are held in Serbian jails on charges of belonging to or helping the Kosovo Liberation Army, which Belgrade considers a terrorist organisation and which was disbanded last September.
     Serb courts have convicted about one-hundred-and-fifty of them, handing out prison terms from three to fifteen years. 

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service 

Thursday, January 06th, 2000

Process against OSA members started

The investigation against seven citizens of Krusevac started today on Military court in Belgrade, Radio B2-92 reported. The charges are unification for enemy activities and preparing terrorist actions, foundation of Serbian liberation army (OSA) and preparing assassinations on many oppositions and regime personas. Some Belgrade media reported after failed assassination on SPO leader Vuk Draskovic that OSA took responsibility for this action. Borivoje Borovic, one accuser's lawyer and also lawyer of Vuk Draskovic said that OSA was really founded, but not as a terrorist organization but as a organization which supposed to help Kosovo Serb after Yugoslav army withdraw. He said that all arrested OSA member completely denied any connection with Draskovic assassination attempt. - When they heard about the assassination on Draskovic, they took responsibility because advertising reasons. They wished to attracted attention on there's organization. But now, it is proved without any doubt that they don't have anything with this or any other assassination in Yugoslavia. - Borovic said. 

Kosovo Albanian Endjulu Prekaj sentenced to a 13 year prison term

Five-member court council of Military court in city of Nis convicted on December of 31st Kosovo Albanian Endjulu Prekaj to a 13 year prison term because unification for enemy activities, Danas dally reported. Judge Radomir Mladenovic said that accused - Court rejected to interrogate witnesses which would confirm that Prekaj was conscripted by force to KLA, against his free will. Indictment is saying that the gun has been founded when Prekaj was arrested, but that gun was not registered anywhere (after the arrestment) or nether shown. "Paraffin glove" was never used to proof that the gun was used at all - Djordje Kalanj, Prekaj's lawyer said. 

© Copyrights Free Serbia, 1999.

The full texts of the reports you can read at
Report No 477  from 19 Dec until 26 Dec 1999
Report No 476  from 12 Dec until 19 Dec 1999
Report No 475  from 5 Dec until 12 Dec 1999

KËSHILLI PËR MBROJTJEN E TË DREJTAVE E TË LIRIVE TË NJERIUT
COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS
Rr. Zdrini, 38000 Prishtinë-Kosovë; tel. 381 (0) 549006 fax: 381 (0) 38 549007
E-mail:kmdlnj@albanian.com   cdhrf@albanian.com   http://www.albanian.com/kmdlnj

Report 475
on the situation of the human rights and freedoms in Kosova
from December 5 until December 12, 1999

Trials

    - On December 9, Flora Brovina, a pediatrician from Prishtina, was sentenced by the District Court in Nish (Serbia) to a prison term of 12 years. She was accused of “terrorism” and “hostile activity”.
    - The District Court in Vranje (Serbia) sentenced Xhavit Ramizi from the village of Breznica near Bujanoc to a prison term of 3 years. He was accused of illegal arms possession.

The prisoners

    PRISHTINA: On December 10, “Koha Ditore” published a list with the names of 20 Albanian prisoners, a number of whom had not previously figured in the lists of those imprisoned. The following are imprisoned in Nish: 
      Gazi Dervish Fazliu and 
      Berat Ramadan Xhezairi – Prizren; 
      Elez Durzim Haxhillari – municipality of Prizren; 
      Fatmir Shashivar Memaj, 
      Kujtim Ekrem Memaj, 
      Nexhmedin Haki Ajazaj, 
      Elez Kurtaj and Tahir Ademaj – Zhur; 
      Ibrahim Adem Tahiri – Lybeçeva,
      Shaban Kamber
      Xhimbedi – Lubizhda, and 
      Afrim Muhamed Berisha – Lez (Prizren); 
      Agim Isa Krasniqi and 
      Engjëll Prenk Zefi – Çeskova (Klina); 
      Ilaz Avdi Hoxholli – Hajvali (Prishtina), 
      Jeton Dalip Krasniqi – Buça (Dragash), 
      Fazli Xhevat Fazliu – Breznica (Obiliq), 
      Nijazi Selim Krasniqi – Pastasella (Rahovec), 
      Avdyl Jahir Morina – Arllat (Gllogoc) and 
      Islam Imer Thaçi – Beograd. 

      Xhevat Mustafa, aged between 20-30, is in the prison of Mitrovica e Sremit

Evidence on war criminals

    VITI: In the municipality of Vitia, many lists were found with the names of the Serbian military and paramilitary forces implicated in the killings and the persecution of the Albanian population. A list was found with the names of the following 20 policemen (members of a special police unit): Bogosav Kërçmareviq, Canko Spasiq, Dragan Nojkiq, Nebojsha Arsiq, Novica Jakovleviq, Dragan P. Stanishiq, Miodrag Stanishiq, Dragisha Dinçiq, Slavisha Maksimoviq, Zoran Cvetkoviq, Nebojsha Stanojeviq, Branko Arizanoviq, Nenad Përzhiq, Momçilo Vasoviq, Vidosav Kojiq, Milovan Ivkoviq, Miroslav Mihajloviq, Sasha Vujiq, Stanislav Vukiq and Sasha Jeremiq. The above mentioned were active in Kosova starting from May 19.
_________________________________________________________________________

Report 476
on the situation of the human rights and freedoms in Kosova
from December 12 until December 19, 1999

The prisoners

    GJAKOVA: On December 14, Shaban Rama (48) from the village of Ponoshec was released from the prison in Pozharevac (Serbia) after 20 months of imprisonment.
    SUHAREKA: On December 14, Xhavit Mala, a teacher from the village of Mushtisht near Suhareka, who was arrested on October 14, 1998, and sentenced on February 16, 1999 to 2 years of imprisonment, was released from the prison in Nish. Xhavit is the first prisoner from the municipality of Suhareka to be released from the prisons of Serbia after the war.
    GLLOGOC: On December 16, Brahim Deli Asllani (1981), a farmer from the village of Çikatova e Re, who was arrested by the Serbian paramilitary forces on May 28, and released from the prison in Pozharevac (Serbia) on November 17, stated to the sub-CDHRF in Gllogoc, that the following are still in detention in the prison of Pozharevac: 
     Jeton Isufi from Çikatova e Re, 
     Rrustem Hoti from the village of Polac near Skënderaj and
     Hajrullah Brahimi from the village of Kçiq near Mitrovica. 
He also recognized the following Albanians in the prison of Pozharevac:
     Gazmend Isufi,
     Ismet Isufi,
     Agim Baleci and
     Enver Baleci – from Çikatova e Re;
     Ejup Elshani,
     Muharrem Elshani and
     Fehmi Topalli – from Bainca;
     Fehmi Buquku from Gllogoc and
     Fejzë Podrimçaku from Krajkova; as well as
     Bashkim Gllogovci from the village of Shipol near Mitrovica.

Evidence on war criminals

    FUSHË-KOSOVA: Based on the statements taken from the family members of those who were killed, a list was compiled with the names of the following 32 paramilitaries implicated in the killings of the Albanians, in the looting, burning and destruction of their houses and their property: Boban Mitroviq, Dragan Mitroviq, Slobodan Mitroviq, Slavisha Grujiq, Boban Grujiq, Slavisha Andrejeviq – one of the main organizers of the expulsion of the Albanians from Fushë-Kosova, Zhika Begnellaviq, Mladen Laziq, Dragomir Popoviq, Dragan Dabizhleviq, Lazar Deniq, Radomir Dishiq, Radovan Petroviq, Radojica Mitiq, Dragan Iliq, Aca Stankoviq, Sasha Mihajloviq, Sava Drashkoviq, Miodrag Bangjur, Milan Milkoviq, Sasha Maksimoviq, Nebojsha Stefanoviq, Vlastimir Jovanoviq, Dushan Zharkoviq, Dragan Xhekiq, Dobri Artinoviq, Stanko Milankoviq, Dobrivoje Gjorgjeviq, Darko Milosheviq, Dragolub Lukaçeviq, Lubisha Veliçkoviq and Zharko Vasiq.
    OBILIQ: Many documents (on the activities of the Serbian military and paramilitary forces) were found in the “Pandeli Sotiri” Primary School in Obiliq. A unit comprised of the following paramilitaries was active in the villages of Mazgit and Subotiq: Borislav Klaiq (commander), Dragisha Stankoviq, Rajko Samarxhiq, Zoran Gjorgjeviq, Tomislav Iliq, Bratislav Steviq, Mishko Janoviq, Dragisha Bojiq and NN Milosheviq. It is supposed that the above mentioned were from Kraleva (Serbia). Another list was found with the names of Branislav Klaiq (commander), Milosh Jankoviq and Branislav Miriq. A unit comprised of the following paramilitaries was active in the village of Subotiq: Lubodrag Bojkoviq (commander), Gjegja Milosheviq, Slavisha Milosheviq, Dragan Antiq, Sërgjan Miliq, Zharko Stanojeviq, Vladica Mihajloviq, Miodrag Markoviq and Branko Matiq. Apart from the above mentioned the names of the following figure in another list: Lubodrag Bojkoviq (commander), Ivica Stoliq and Zlatko Dabiq. Another unit was comprised by: Dragisha Stankoviq (commander), Zhivorad Miliq, Vojislav Zhiviq, Veselin Stamenkoviq, Sërgjan Miliq, Milan Gjorgjeviq, David Kërstiq and Petar Kovaçeviq. The list states that due to different reasons, the following did not report to their units: Jugoslav Dimitrijeviq, Milan Jovanoviq, Momçilo Stojanoviq and Zhivojin Deniq.
 

    Note: CDHRF possesses the list with the names of the places where the birth registries, marriage registries and death registries were taken.
1.  The Municipality Court in Bujanoc – (“Karagjorgje” 115) tel. 017/ 761 042 - Gjilan, Viti, Kamenica and Novobërda;
2.  The District Court in Jagodina – (“Kneginja Milica” 86) tel. 035/ 223 334, 224 638 room 200 - Gjakova and Deçan;
3.  The Municipality Court in Kragujevc – (“Svetosavska” 7/44) tel. 034/ 335 677, 335 688 room 220 – Peja, Istog and Klina;
4.  The Court for Petty Offences in Kraleva – (“Jovan Sariq” 1) tel. 036/ 331 422 room 603 – Mitrovica, Skënderaj, Vushtrri, Leposaviq, Zubin-Potok and Zveçan;
5.  The Municipality Court in Krushevc – (“Raiqeva”) tel. 037/ 22 124, 440 640 room 27 599 – Prizren, Rahovec, Suhareka and Dragash (Gora);
6.  The Municipality Court in Leskoc – (“Kosta Stamenkoviq” 16) tel. 016/ 212 160 – Ferizaj, Kaçanik, Shtimje and Shtërpca;
7.  The Municipality Court in Nish – (“Singjeliq” 1/V) tel. 018/ 21 986 – Prishtina, Podujeva, Gllogoc, Lipjan and Fushë-Kosova.
_________________________________________________________________________

REPORT NO. 477
on the situation of human rights and freedoms in Kosova
from 19 until 26 December 1999

Trials

    - On 22 December, the District Court in Kurshumlia (Serbia) convicted Senad Begu and Selim Azemi, both from Podujeva, to 8 months of imprisonment each for “illegal felling of trees”. They were kidnapped on 14 September by Serbian policemen and civilians, while they were cutting woods in their own forests in the vicinity of Merdar, on the border Kosova-Serbia.

The prisoners and prisons

    PRISHTINA: An Albanian citizen introduced with his initials A. I. from Banja e Sijarinës (Medvegja), who was released from the military prison of Nish (Serbia) on 17 December and who lives with his family in Shkup, managed to take a list with the names of 15 Albanian prisoners in Nish, even though their number is much higher. According to him, the following were on the same floor with him:
                  Dedë Markaj,
                  Frano Komoni and
                  Haxhi Pajazitaj - from Gjakova;
                  Robert Gashi,
                  Jani or Toni Prela,
                  Lazër Krasniqi and Sokol Ndue – from Korenica (Gjakova);
                  Fatmir Shashivar Memaj,
                  Kujtim Ekrem Memaj,
                  Nexhmedin Haki Ajazaj and
                  Elez Kurtaj – from Zhur (Prizren);
                  Ibrahim Tahiri and
                  Abdyl Morina – from the district of Rahovec;
                  Jeton Dalip Krasniqi from Buça (Dragash) and
                  Gani Shukriu from the district of Prizren.
    PEJA: The following were released from the prison of Leskovc (Serbia):
                  Beqir Tahir Loxha,
                  Xhevat Ramë Bajrami and
                  Vllaznim Brahim Përgjegjaj from Vitomirica and
                  Agron Ibrahim Kollçaku from Peja.
They were arrested by Serbian forces 7 months ago.

    SUHAREKA: On 24 December, Sokol Ymer Kabashi (1972) from Dardhishta (Suhareka) was released from the prison of Prokuple (Serbia). He was arrested on 24 January 1999 on the border with Hungary in Kelebi of Subotica (Vojvodina).

A prisoner was brought dead from Prokuple prison

Suharekë, January 6 (Kosovapress)
Today in Suhareka, a prisoner was brought dead by the help of International Red Cross. The prisoner Muhamed Basha was sixty years old, the poor old man died from the serb tortures at the prison in Prokuple.

Today, Rrahman Olluri has been released from the prison of Nish

Lipjan, January 6 (Kosovapress)
Mr. Rrahman Olluri who was born in the village of Rufc i Ri, the district of Lipjani, today has been released from the prison of Nish. Rrahman Olluri was arrested by the Serb police on May 8. In the moment of his arrest he was at his home, in his village and for eight months he has been serving his sentence to Serb jails of Pozharevci and Nishi. Before his arrest Mr. Rrahman Olluri has been a KLA activist, and during the war he has given a great contribution, so that today we could be free. At that time, he was KLA logistic member and for eight months he has been maltreated in a permanent way. He said to a Kosovapress correspondent that soon he will give information about the health and state of some of his friends who remained in the prison of Pozharevci.

FREEB92 DAILY NEWS
FROM THE B2-92 NEWSROOM - BELGRADE
Jan 06, 2000 18:18 CET

Military Court alleges Serb terrorism

BELGRADE, Thursday - Seven citizens of the south Serbian city of Krusevac were charged in the Belgrade Military Court today with conspiring for enemy activity and terrorist activities. The charges allege that the seven had established a terrorist organisation, the Serbian Liberation Army, which had planned the assassination of a large number of regime and opposition figures. 
The Serbian Liberation Army has been a low-profile organisation since first emerging in public several years ago with a manifesto published in Belgrade daily "Dnevni telegraf".

Albanian prisoners released

POZAREVAC, Thursday - A court in the central Serbian city of Pozarevac today released a group of Albanians who have been held for seventeen months on charges of terrorism. The four were released into the care of the International Red Cross, who arranged transport for them to Kosovo. The four men were arrested on July 6, 1998 after being accused of taking part in an attack on a convoy of police vehicles in Kosovo. The Pozarevac District Court today ruled that there was insufficient evidence against the men.

R e l i e f W e b 
http://www.reliefweb.int
Source: UN Secretary-General
Date: 05 Jan 2000

Secretary-General pleased by 31 December release of aid workers in custody of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

SG/SM/7274 

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for Secretary- General Kofi Annan: 

The Secretary-General was pleased to learn of the release form prison on 31 December 1999 of Branko Jelen, the remaining CARE aid worker under custody by the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on charges of passing on secret information. His release is a welcome start to the new year and a sign of encouragement to the humanitarian community, whose aim is to assist all in need around the world. 

EU To Discuss Fate Of Kosovars Jailed In Serbia

BRUSSELS, Jan 5, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse)
Ethnic Albanians in Belgium won a promise Wednesday that the fate of several thousand Kosovars languishing in Serbian prisons will be discussed by EU foreign ministers, representatives said.
     The pledge was made as 200 ethnic Albanians demonstrated peacefully outside EU headquarters and three Kosovo Albanians went into the 13th day of a hunger strike in a Brussels church to draw attention to the prisoners' plight.
     Stephan Lehne, an aide to EU foreign policy high representative Javier Solana, was quoted as telling a delegation of Kosovars that, given Belgrade's isolation, there was a limit how much pressure could be brought to bear.
     "But they will do all they can, and study the issue at a coming meeting of (foreign) ministers," said Gani Azemi, a Belgian-based associate of veteran Kosovo political leader Ibrahim Rugova who participated at the meeting.
     The delegation, supported by Belgian Green Euro-MP Bart Staes, was also to meet Wednesday with officials from Portugal, which has just taken over the six-month rotating presidency of the 15-country European Union.
     An estimated 2,000 to 5,000 ethnic Albanians are still behind bars in Serbia, seven months after NATO air strikes ended Belgrade's control of Kosovo and put the Balkan hotspot under U.N. administration.
     EU foreign ministers are scheduled to meet next January 24-25. 

((c) 2000 Agence France Presse)

FREEB92 DAILY NEWS
FROM THE B2-92 NEWSROOM - BELGRADE
Jan 05, 2000 18:48 CET

Journalist Union: demand for release of jailed editor

BELGRADE, The Independent Association of Serbian Journalists today demanded that Serbian President Milan Milutinovic pardon jailed media operator Nebojsa Ristic. The Association emphasised that their demand was made in accordance with the Serbian president's constitutional authority. Ristic, the editor-in-chief of Sokobanja's TV Soko, was jailed for twelve months last year for displaying a Free Press poster in his office. 
     In other media news, international organisation for the protection of journalists, Reporters Sans Frontieres, announced today that 36 journalists had been killed throughout the world during 1999. This is twice as many as during the previous year. The report added that 84 journalists are in prison and 653 have been exposed to threats or assaults. In Serbia, according to Reporters Sans Frontieres, about 30 media outlets have been fined more than 1.7 million Euros. 

Dear Friends of Albin--

I have been asked by Albin's brother to let you know that Albin was transfered to Nis Prison two weeks ago. And it is believed that the authorities are preparing for his trial there. We recently experienced the trial and sentencing of Dr. Brovina a few weeks ago, so we havae some idea what to expect from that. So far, no one knows what the official charges are against Albin. But in the summer a Serb paper stated that he was being held for acts of terrorism, as evidenced by his meetings with Holbrooke, whom he never met, and Hill. In addition, he was supposedly charged with providing First Aid information. We do know that Albin was severely tortured when he was first arrested last April. In most of the cases so far, forced confessions are being used as the main evidence for conviction. Sentences range from 3 years to 20 years in other trials. The family does not want the kind of widespread publicity that Flora Brovina went through, but of course wish ardently for his release and believe absolutely in Albin's innocence of these ludicrous charges. Therefore, we should all do our utmost to make his situation known to western  officials at all levels and to Serb human rights groups. We are all aware of the scrupulous moral decisions and the personal sacrifices that Albin made in his efforts to bring justice to Kosova. If the Brovina trial is any indication, it will be very difficult for Albin to obtain a fair trial in Nis.

For details and articles on Albin's background and his political and peace work, Wolfgang Plarre maintains a meticulous web site at:  www.bndlg.de/~wplarre/Suche-Kurti.htm . Wolfgang's email is wplarre@bndlg.de . A biography of Albin written by his brother is on the Assoc. Political Prisoners web site at:  www.khao.org/appkosova.htm

We urge all of you to contact officials in foreign affairs and human rights at every level in your country and to urge them to use every means possible to provide basic human rights for Albin.

Please do not begin a widespread media campaign at this point. The  family does not want Albin to have a trial in that kind of atmosphere.

Sincerely,
Alice Mead
Kosova Action Network
Association of Political Prisoners 

Tuesday, January 04th, 2000

Demand for releasing of Ristic and Maki

Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (IAJS) announced today that the General secretariat of president of Republic Serbia has passed on the demand of IAJS for releasing of Nebojsa Ristic, editor of TV "Soko", to court which had judged him, Fonet reported. IAJS had sent the demand for releasing to president Milan Milutinovic. In announcement IAJS said that, according to current procedure, act of General secretariat means that president of Republic has asked for case for decision. 
     New Democracy has also sent a letter to Milutinovic in which they are sugesting him to use his constitutional rights and release Bogoljub Arsenijevic - Maki, leader of Civil resistance from Valjevo, Nebojsa Ristic, chief editor of TV "Soko" from Sokobanja and all others political prisoners that are "only guilty because they think that this country has incapable and undemocratic government which should be changed". 

Hunger strike for Albanians

Already for eleven days in Bruxelles, three founders of Alliance of Albanians in world, Simon and Mikel Kuznini from Zagreb and Ramiz Zekoli from Bruxelles, are striking with hunger asking for releasing of Albanian prisoners jailed in Serbia, SENSE reported. 
     According to data announced by Belgrade's Found for humanitarian right there are about 2000 Albanians from Kosovo in prisons in Serbia and Bernard Koushner said that are missing between 4000 and 6000 persons from Kosovo. Representatives of Red Cross and humanitarian organizations visit prisoners in Serbia but it's assumed that some prisoners could be in military prisons where Red Cross wasn't allowed to enter till now. 
     Three Albanians had started the strike day before Christmas in one church in Bruxelles. They are visited by doctors regular and they didn't have any health problems till now. But now, after 11 days of strike, their medical condition comes to critical phase. For now they have received telegrams of support from Albanians organizations and appeals to stop starvation so they shouldn't in jeopardize their health. 

© Copyrights Free Serbia, 1999.

Message-request for the release of the political prisoners

Prishtinë, January 4, (Kosovapress)
On the New Years night, at December 31, 23.15 hrs, The Organizing Council of the protests have organized a large protest, demanding the release of the political prisoners. Tens of thousands of protestors have requested the release of the political prisoners who are still kept in the Serb jails throughout Serbia. The message was read by Shukrie Rexha, the president of the Organizing Council. 
"We are gathered here tonight, in the last hour of this year, to express our concern for our brothers and sisters, who are still kept in the Serb jails, under the permanent torture.
Tonight's protest, in the last hour of this century, even in this organizing form, is sending a message to the following year, putting this issue in the first place, as the primary - urgent one to be solved.
Tonight, when the whole world is celebrating, thousands of Albanians, mainly youngsters, are being tortured in the Serb cold cells of the criminal Serb Regime. For every passing hour, they fight for life- simply because they are Albanians.
Even tonight, they are waiting, instead in-humanity, to win humanity and to go out through the iron doors of the jail. They are kept and isolated there, and those who are keeping them there are negating every humanitarian law and Convention for human rights.
Even tonight, they have the right to hope the ending of such an absurd game with their life. 
UN Security Counsel Resolution 1244 stands in value as the real instrument of UNMIK. Precisely, this Resolution obliges the serious engagement of the International Community over this issue. Thousands of Albanians life are in question here. The International Community is responsible for their safety.
It is necessary to act urgently, to make pressure to the Serb criminal Regime demanding the unconditional release of all Albanian Political prisoners who are being kept as hostages.
We are deeply convinced that this is the pre-conditional factor for the successful operations of the International Community in Kosova, and for the installation of the law and order. This is also the pre-conditional factor to end the ethnic discrimination in the area. 
We, also demand from the International Community, to make pressure to the Serb Regime and give information for 4000 Albanians, who have been arrested by the Serb police Militaries and paramilitaries. Until now nobody knows anything about their destiny.
Honored the participants of the protest! 
The family's and people's concern is reasonable.
Such a reason is obligating us.
For a sublime question such as the prisoners issue is, it is necessary to act together, as Albanians and only then we will have the guaranteed success. 
Tonight 's message-request, is our last message for this year, on the last protest organized during this passed year, protest full of wounds and pain for us.
I would like to join my feelings to your feelings, and even in an such un-ordinary way to congratulate the prisoners, the changing of the years, to wish them being released soon and coming back to their families and to return the meaning of the life here".

FREEB92 DAILY NEWS
Jan 04, 2000 19:28 CET

Milutinovic applies for the release of TV Soko editor Nebojsa Ristic 

BELGRADE, Tuesday - Serbian President Milan Milutinovic has forwarded an application for the release of the editor of TV Soko Nebojsa Ristic to the Municipal Court which sentenced him, the Association of Serbian Independent Journalists (NUNS) announced today. Ristic has been in prison since 23rd April last year for displaying a poster saying "Free press made in Serbia" in his office during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

January 3, 2000

Serbian draft resisters forgotten 

By Veronique Mistiaen
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Thousands of young men who fled Serbia rather than take part in the war in Kosovo now find themselves stranded in Hungary, facing long prison sentences if they go home but denied refugee status in Hungary or any other NATO country.

BUDAPEST — Thousands of young men who fled Serbia rather than take part in Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's war in Kosovo now find themselves stranded in Hungary, facing long prison sentences if they go home but denied refugee status in Hungary or any other NATO country.
     Many have been held since the Kosovo campaign in Debrecen, a former Soviet army base made up of rows of dilapidated barracks surrounded by barbed wire, where they spend their days sitting on iron beds in dank rooms staring into space.
     This so-called "reception center," housing about 1,000 asylum seekers from around the world, is just one of the camps holding the Serbian deserters and draft resisters, some accompanied by wives and children. Others survive in overcrowded and inadequate private accommodations in Hungary.
     In the words of Amnesty International, they are "the forgotten resisters" of the Kosovo war.
     "Throughout the conflict in Kosovo, NATO member states made repeated calls to those serving in the Yugoslav military to resist their leadership," said Brian Phillips of Amnesty, one of the few organizations campaigning on their behalf.
     "Now the men who . . . heeded these calls and the prompting of their conscience, find themselves in urgent need of protection. But the governments who issued the calls to resistance appear to take little interest in the uncertain future facing these men."
     Lorenzo Pasquali, deputy representative for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Budapest, said no one is sure how many Yugoslavs are living in Hungary, although newspapers have quoted figures up to 20,000. Amnesty and other human rights organizations estimate their numbers in the thousands.
     Typical of these men is Goran, a 28-year-old Serbian technician who fled when military police came to deliver his draft papers on March 31, 1999, a few days after NATO started bombing Serbia.
     "I knew the risks. Milosevic had declared a state of war and the borders were closed," said the tall, dark-haired man, who asked that his last name be withheld to protect his family. "But I didn't agree with his senseless policies. I had always opposed him. I wasn't going to serve in his war."
     Goran said he grabbed a change of clothes, a piece of bread, his passport and some meager savings and took off through roads, fields and woods across what refugees call the "green border" into Hungary.
     "I felt so optimistic. I thought my worries were behind me" when he crossed the border, Goran said. But he was soon picked up by Hungarian border police and sent to two refugee camps before ending up at Debrecen. There, he was told his application for asylum had been denied for lack of evidence.
     Today, he feels utterly abandoned. "I know I did the right thing by refusing to fight in the war. I don't regret it, but it costs me so much. I have no job. I miss my friends and family. I am afraid," he said.
     Hunched on his bed, slowly sipping tea from an old yogurt pot, he continued: "In the eyes of my people, I am a traitor and a lot would never forgive me. . . . If I go home, I'll go to jail. But it seems that everybody expects us to be sent back and doesn't care."
     His main hope is to emigrate to the United States, where an uncle in Texas is willing to sponsor him, but he says that so far the U.S. Embassy has been of little help.
     The Yugoslav Lawyers Committee for Human Rights says men like Goran have good reason to fear returning to Yugoslavia. Special laws imposed during the Kosovo campaign provide for jail sentences of up to 10 years for draft dodging, and up to 20 years for leaving the country to avoid a recruitment call-up.
     Amnesty International has determined that at least several hundred draft evaders are already imprisoned in Yugoslavia, most of them serving five-year sentences, and as many as 23,000 more cases are before the military courts.
     Even without the threat of imprisonment, return would be difficult for many. "My grandfather told me, 'If you come back, I'll kill you, and if I don't, someone else will,' " said Sinisa Prole, 26.
     He and eight friends who used to plan anti-Milosevic demonstrations and write political pamphlets at a cafe they called the "Bastion of Freedom" live together in a cramped two-room apartment on a busy boulevard in Budapest.
     All are now despised in the small mining town 35 miles north of Belgrade where they once lived.
     Both UNHCR and the Council of Europe have said that "refusal to take part in a war condemned by the international community because of serious violations of international humanitarian law should be considered grounds for granting asylum."
     Yet no European country including Hungary has been willing to grant refugee status to the Yugoslav draft dodgers.
     Under pressure from UNHCR, Hungary has given one-year renewable permits to some 1,200 draft evaders and other asylum seekers. The U.N. refugee agency is now lobbying to win them the right to work and go to school.
     Other draft evaders are in Hungary on tourist visas while they await a decision on their status or are in the country illegally. Hungary so far has not deported anyone and is unlikely to do so "at this stage," Mr. Pasquali said.
     "We're not asking for special favors. We have skills; we'll work," said Snezana Bozickovic, 30, who fled with her husband and son. She said her family is prepared to go to any Western country where people can speak English.
     Not all draft evaders, however, want a new life abroad. Sveta Matic, 26, an active member of the student opposition in Belgrade who was arrested many times, dreams only of going home.
     "I want to go back to Serbia. I don't care if we don't have electricity, if I have to wait until I am 40, if I [go back as] a simple worker. I want to be part of building a new democratic Serbia," he said. 

All site contents copyright © 1999-2000 News World Communications, Inc.

Amnesty International - News Release - EUR 70/118/99 - 27 October 1999 - YUGOSLAVIA

'The forgotten resisters' of the Kosovo conflict - the price of conscience the-forgotten-resisters--amnesty-News-Release-991027.htm

The forgotten resisters: the plight of conscientious objectors to military service after the conflict in Kosovo
the-forgotten-resisters--amnesty-REPORT-991027.htm

In Kosovo's capital, Pristina, 30 miles southeast of here, thousands of ethnic Albanians jammed the main street in front of the National Theater, greeting the new millennium with fresh demands for the release of compatriots held in Yugoslav jails following the Kosovo conflict.

``Tonight, when the whole world is celebrating, thousands of Albanians are being tortured in the cells of the Serb criminals,'' said Shukrije Rexha, a protest organizer. ``Let us not forget tonight our beloved ones who are not with us.''

Thousands of ethnic Albanians are believed still held in Yugoslav jails more than six months after the Kosovo conflict ended with Milosevic's acceptance of a Western peace plan after 78 days of NATO bombing.

AP-NY-12-31-99 2026EST

Large protest, demanding the release of Albanian prisoners

Prishtinë, December 30 (Kosovapress)
The Organizing Council of the Protests, tomorrow night organizes a large protest demanding the release of the Albanian Political Prisoners who are still kept in the Serb jails. The protest will start at 23.15 and will have only one message- the release of the Albanian prisoners. The protestors will also appeal on the International Community, to put the pressure on the Serb Regime in Belgrade for the release of more than 7.000 prisoners who are kept as hostages on the Serb jails throughout Serbia. In the name of the Organizing Council, a speech to the protestors will be held by Shukrie Rexha. The Organizing Council invites all the citizens to take part in the protest. 

Eight Kosovo Albanians Sentenced 

The Associated Press
Thursday, Dec. 30, 1999; 10:26 a.m. EST

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia –– A Serbian court sentenced eight ethnic Albanians for membership in the officially disbanded rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, the state-run daily Politika said Thursday. 
     The court in Leskovac, a city 150 miles southeast of the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade, sentenced the eight on charges they "enlisted with the KLA in 1998, built bunkers, carried out surveillance of Yugoslav army troop movements and participated in attacks against the military and police" in Kosovo, the newspaper said. 
     In one attack, several Serbian policemen were injured. 
     Of the eight, all from the Kosovo region of Orahovac, one was tried and sentenced to five years in absentia. The remaining seven, all in police custody, received prison sentences ranging from two to five years. 
     (...)

© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press

481 messages have arrived from Pozharevci Prison 

Prishtinë, December 29 (Kosovapress)
The International Red Cross Committee office in Prishtina has announced that this office has received 481 messages from the Serb jai of Pozharevci.
This office offers the possibility of taking of those messages in the following address, Delavist office (building close to the Medical Ambulance), Tirana street, Nr.18. Those letters can be taken from today.

Wednesday, December 29th, 1999

NUNS reminds the minister on his promises

Independent Journalists Association of Serbia (NUNS), asked the federal minister of information Goran Matic, to fulfill his promise and supports the release of the editor-in-chief of the Soko TV from Sokobanja, Nebojsa Ristic, radio B2-92 reported today. 
Ristic have been in prison since April 23, when he was arrested and sentenced to one year in prison. After his TV station was closed, Ristic put the poster with title "Free Press - Made in Serbia" at the window of the office, which Zajecar County Court described as the "spreading of false news." 
NUNS reminded Matic that he promised to "accept the suggestion" of the Radio Free Europe's correspondent, and contact the Serbian minister of justice.