[A-PAL] FW: A-PAL 10/11/00

[Alice Mead]

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> A-PAL : ASSOCIATION  OF POLITICAL PRISONERS/PRISHTINA/USA/GERMANY
> ARCHIVES: www.khao.org/appkosova.htm
>
> WE NEED YOUR HELP! DEMAND THE RELEASE OF THE 878 ALBANIAN
> PRISONERS NOW!
> OCTOBER 12, 2000
>
>
> Xhevdet Podvorica is 17 years old.A tall boy, with dark hair and now very,
> very thin, he was arrested at his uncle's apartment in the Bregu Diellit
> neighborhood of Prishtina  on May 19, 1999, when he was 16 years old. The 30
> day police warrant of arrest expired on June 12, 1999. He has been tortured,
> first at Lipjan Prison in Kosova, where conditions were so appalling and
> barbarous that they bring to mind the Bosnian camps. On June 10, he was
> taken to Sremska Mitrovica Prison in northern Serbia. Another minor, Bekim
> Istogu, is imprisoned there with him. They receive  one small piece of bread
> per day and have five minutes to eat it. They are not allowed to look at the
> guards. Albanian prisoners there are beaten regularly and threatened with
> being killed. When the 35 other minor prisoners were released last November,
> these two boys were not. They have never been charged with a crime.
>
> Xhevdet's  mother has seen him twice in the past year and a half. She has
> brought him food packages, without which he probably would have starved by
> now. He is in a cell with many adults, and received the same level of
> torture as the adults. He has written to his classmates, hoping that he will
> be able to see them again and to finish his classes.
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>                  THIS IS ETHNIC DISCRIMINATION!
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>      IMPRISONMENT OF ALBANIANS CALLED "AWKWARD" BY EU FOREIGN OFFICIALS!
> RELEASE OF CANADIANS, BRITISH, DUTCH CELEBRATED.
> ___________________________________________________________
>
> Quote: Rachel Denber/Human Rights Watch, October 11, 2000
>
> "Releasing Filipovic is a good step, but Kostunica can and should do
> much more," said Rachel Denber, Acting Executive Director of Human
> Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia Division. "Hundreds of Kosovo
> Albanians are serving unjust sentences in Serbia. Releasing them would show
> conclusively that the new government isfundamentally different from that of
> Slobodan Milosevic. It would show a dedication to justice and ethnic
> tolerance."
>
> Serbian human rights groups estimate that 850 Kosovo Albanians who
> werearrested during last year's NATO war are currently serving prison
> sentences in Serbia.  Most sentences resulted from unfair trials lacking
> evidence against the accused.
> ______________________________________________________
>
> A-PAL:  There is no legal validity to releasing eight foreigners and Serb
> journalists  while  denying justice to the imprisoned Albanians, who fear
> for their lives in prison. This is an international disgrace---Not one
> foreign country has offered to serve as their advocate, as they should be
> guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions, to prevent their torture, harassment,
> mock trials. IF COUNTRIES WITH DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENTS WANT TO ESTABLISH
> TRADE WITH SERBIA, BUT DO NOT INSIST ON THE RULE OF LAW NO MATTER HOW
> "INCONVENIENT" THAT MAY SEEM, THEN THEY ARE NEARLY  AS CORRUPT AS THE REGIME
> THEY SEEK TO REPLACE AND CERTAINLY AS HYPOCRITICAL.
>
> ______________________________________________________________
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>
> Yugoslavs Release Canadian Citizen
>
> By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
> Filed at 3:51 p.m. ET
>
> BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Yugoslavia's new government filed charges
> against a Canadian citizen and then freed him on bail Monday, weeks
> after the old regime arrested him for alleged illegal possession of
> explosives.
>      The now-ousted government of Slobodan Milosevic detained Shaun
> Going, his nephew, Liam Hall, and two British police officers in August
> as they traveled between the NATO-controlled province of Kosovo and
> Montenegro, the smaller of Yugoslavia's two republics. Authorities had
> refused to level charges against Going, stalling the case in the courts.
>      Going's lawyer, Ivan Jankovic, said that with the case now moving
> forward, Going could leave the country. He said the defense would demand
> that the ``unfounded'' explosives possession charges be dropped.
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> http://www.freeb92.net/archive/e/index.phtml?Y=2000&M=10&D=10
>
> FreeB92  Last update: Oct 10, 2000 19:35 CET
>
> Filipovic released
>
> 19:35 NIS, Tuesday - Kraljevo journalist Miroslav Filipovic was released
> from Nis Military Prison this afternoon. He left escorted by his wife
> Slavica and his lawyer.
>      The Supreme Court earlier today overturned Filipovic's seven year
> sentence for espionage and disseminating false information and ordered
> that he be released immediately. The ruling cited violations of legal
> procedures in the original trial as the reason for overturning the
> sentence.
>      Filipovic told about thirty foreign and domestic journalists
> waiting outside the prison that he felt wonderful and that he had never
> lost hope that the sentence would be overturned. "I was simply not
> guilty of the things I was charged with," said Filipovic.
>      Another imprisoned journalist, Zoran Lukovic, will be released on
> parole tomorrow Radio B92 learnt today from his lawyer, Gradimir Nalic.
>      Lukovic was a staff journalist with the now defunct Dnevni
> telegraf. He was sentenced to five months imprisonment after publishing
> an article accusing former Serbian Health Minister Milovan Bojic of
> involvement in a murder.
>
> Remaining Canadian released
>
> 13:56 BELGRADE, Tuesday - Canadian citizen Shaun Going, arrested last
> summer by the Yugoslav Army under suspicion of having planned terrorist
> actions in Yugoslavia, was released from the military prison after
> nearly two months of imprisonment, Canadian television network CBC
> reported.
>      According to this television network, Going has paid bail in the
> amount of $3,000, left the military court and was already on his way to
> Canada. He had been arrested with other three foreign citizens, among
> them two Britons and another Canadian, all released few days ago.
>      British citizens were members of the international police forces in
> Kosovo, while Going was the owner of a construction company hired in
> Kosovo.
>      Military court allowed him to leave Belgrade under condition that
> he return for the possible retrial.
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> http://www.freeb92.net/archive/e/index.phtml?Y=2000&M=10&D=09
>
> FreeB92  Last update: Oct 9, 2000 23:40 CET
>
> Four Dutchmen to be released
>
> 23:31 BELGRADE, Monday - Belgrade authorities agreed today to release
> four Dutchmen who were arrested in July on suspicion of having conspired
> to murder former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, a defence lawyer
> for one of the accused, Zoran Jovanovic, told Reuters today.
>      A representative of the Dutch Embassy in Belgrade discussed the
> release of the men Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica on Friday.
> ___________________________
>
>
>                 NO ALBANIANS RELEASED!
>
> ________________________________________________
>
>
> Human Rights Watch/New York:
>
> RIGHTS GROUP CALLS FOR RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN SERBIA
>
> (New York, October 10, 2000)—Human Rights Watch today welcomed the
> release of a Serbian journalist, but also called for the release of
> hundreds of Kosovo Albanians currently in Serbian jails.
>
> Miroslav Filipovic, a freelance journalist from the Serbian town of
> Kraljevo, was sentenced in July 2000 to seven years in prison for
> articles written for the Internet site of the Institute for War and
> Peace Reporting (IWPR), an organization based in London. The articles
> alleged that Yugoslav Army servicemen committed war crimes against
> Kosovo Albanians during the 1999 NATO war and that the army's presence
> provoked tensions in Sandzak, a region in Serbia inhabited mostly by
> Muslims.
>
> The Supreme Military Court in Belgrade annulled the guilty verdict
> against Filipovic today on procedural grounds,  and sent the case back
> to the court for a new trial.  Meanwhile, Filipovic was released on his
> own recognizance. It is widely believed that the Yugoslav Army
> leadership, which met with the new Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica
> on October 5, accepted Mr. Kostunica and that the release of Filipovic
> reflects the political agenda of the new president.
>
> "Releasing Filipovic is a good step, but Kostunica can and should do
> much more," said Rachel Denber, Acting Executive Director of Human
> Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia Division. "Hundreds of Kosovo
> Albanians are serving unjust sentences in Serbia. Releasing them would
> show conclusively that the new government is fundamentally different
> from that of Slobodan Milosevic. It would show a dedication to justice
> and ethnic tolerance."
> Serbian human rights groups estimate that 850 Kosovo Albanians who were
> arrested during last year's NATO war are currently serving prison
> sentences in Serbia.  Most sentences resulted from unfair trials lacking
> evidence against the accused.
>
> President Kostunica's first opportunity to set a pattern for the release
> of Kosovo Albanian political prisoners will come on Thursday, when a
> Serbian court will re-hear the case of Flora Brovina, chair of the
> League of Albanian Women in Kosovo. Brovina, a poet and physician,  was
> sentenced in November 1999 by a district court in Nis to twelve years in
> prison on
> charges of conspiracy to commit "hostile activity" and terrorism. The
> prosecution alleged that Brovina was ferrying supplies to the KLA, and
> based the case against her solely on a receipt for knitting wool,
> medicines, and medical supplies, and a photograph showing Dr. Brovina
> with an Albanian fighter.
>
> On May 17, 2000, the Supreme Court of Serbia struck down Brovina's
> sentence on procedural grounds and returned the case for a new trial.
> But it also ruled to keep Brovina in custody  pending the re-trial.
>
> Of 850 Kosovo Albanian political prisoners, about 650 had their
> sentences confirmed by the Serbian Supreme Court or the Yugoslav
> military courts. Only a presidential pardon now can expedite their
> release. Article 96 (8) of the Yugoslav constitution vests the president
> with this power. The remaining 200 Albanian prisoners are awaiting
> appeals decisions by the supreme courts, as was the case with journalist
> Miroslav Filipovic.
>
> "We are aware that the new government in Serbia is only being shaped at
> this stage, and that it will need some time to address all the cases
> from the past two years in which individuals were sentenced on political
> grounds," Denber said. "But Kostunica should not wait too long."
>
> Denber said that Mr. Kostunica's position so far rejecting the transfer
> of  indictees to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
> Yugoslavia in the Hague threw into question the adherence of the
> post-Milosevic leadership to international principles that underpin
> justice and the rule of law. "Any reluctance to release political
> prisoners regardless of their ethnicity would be another warning
> signal," she said.
>
> For further information, please contact:
> Rachel Denber (New York): +212-216-1266
> Bogdan Ivanisevic (Belgrade): +381-63-832-9032
>
> ____________________________________________________
>
> October 11, 2000
> B-92
>
> Kouchner calls for new sanctions against Yugoslavia
> 21:29 PRISTINA, Wednesday -
>
> The United Nations administrator in Kosovo,
> Bernard Kouchner, today called for sanctions to be imposed on Yugoslavia's
> new leaders if they did not release Kosovo Albanians held in Serbian
> prisons. Members of the Serbian National Council reported that Kouchner had
> expressed reserved optimism about the DOS victory in the country's federal
> elections.
>
> Albanian members of the Kosovo Transitional Council supported Kouchner's
> position, most of them emphasising that the opposition victory would no have
> any crucial impact on the reality of Kosovo. They called for Belgrade to
> immediately release all Kosovo Albanian prisoners and for Yugoslav President
> Vojislav Kostunica to publicly apologise for war crimes. A number of
> Albanian politicians have stepped up their demands for an urgent resolution
> of Kosovo's status and recognition of its independence.
>
> Kosovo Serb leader Father Sava Janjic described Kouchner's call for
> sanctions as unacceptable, describing such a step as an inhumane form of
> pressure which would cause the innocent population further suffering. He
> also noted that Kouchner had made no mention of discrimination against
> Serbs, Romanies and other minorities in Kosovo, saying that the UN Mission
> head was presenting only the view of the province's Albanian population.
>
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