The Special Court for Kosovo forgot about 17 journalists killed by militants
The Commonwealth of Journalists of Serbia (ONS) protested that the indictment of the prosecutor's office of the Special Court for Kosovo did not include an invoice for the murder of 17 Serbian and Albanian journalists in the province.
According to the organization, the crimes occurred from 1998 to 2005.
“It is unacceptable that the indictments that were finally brought against the former leaders of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK - ed.) Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Recep Selimi, did not mention crimes against journalists at all,” - the ONS said in a statement.
Between 1998 and 2005, 17 Serbian and Albanian journalists and media workers were killed or disappeared in Kosovo for reporting critically on the UCK and Kosovo's post-war leadership, the journalists' organization said.
“Our demands to identify and punish those responsible are met with an international wall of silence, which only encourages the inaction of the Kosovo authorities,” the statement said.
According to the ONS, the episode considered by the Special Court was the only crime in any way related to the activities of the press in Kosovo - the murder of Shaban Hoti, a professor of Russian language at the University of Pristina. In 1998, this man was a translator for the film crew of a Russian television channel, for which he was shot by militants.
“The Hague court sentenced Hayredin Balay, a camp guard in Lapusnik, to 13 years in prison for the murder of Hoti and eight other civilians. But when Balaj died two years ago, the Kosovo parliament honored his memory with a minute of silence,” the message says.
The authors of the statement stress that it is unacceptable for the ONS that the international community considers the lives of their colleagues in Kosovo to be less valuable than the lives of journalists in other parts of the globe, and they believe that such discrimination is deeply immoral.
“Of all the international negotiators on the status of Kosovo and all the mediators in the Serbian-Albanian dialogue, only the OSCE Representative in Kosovo, Jan Bratu, persistently demands the disclosure of crimes against journalists,” the statement said.
According to the UNS, the Special Court for Kosovo has been presented to the international community as a new opportunity for justice, and they cannot remain silent “lest this opportunity die.”
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