[A-PAL] newsletter 6/27/01

[Alice Mead]

A-PAL (Albanian Prisoner Advocacy)
June 26, 2001


    FOREIGN MINISTER SVILANOVIC ANNOUNCES: ALL ALBANIAN PRISONERS WILL 
BE TRANSFERED TO KOSOVA. DAYS LATER, IN FACT, 61 ALBANIAN PRISONERS, 
INCLUDING DUBRAVA MASSACRE SURVIVORS FIND THEMSELVES TRANSFERED 
ELSEWHERE IN SERBIA!

Imagine that you are one of these prisoners, still suffering from 
physical and psychological wounds dating back to May, 1999. It has 
been announced on television that you will be allowed to go home. 
Suddenly, a few days later, most prisoners in Belgrade Central Prison 
are taken back to Sremska Mitrovica prison in the north of Serbia, a 
day or two after your mother was beaten by Milosevic supporters at 
the prison gates.
Mass graves in and around Belgrade are being exhumed,found to be full 
of the bodies of your peers. The perpetrator of the worst violence in 
Europe since Hitler is about to be extradited for crimes he committed 
against you. The foreign minister tells the UN Security Council that 
you will be sent home, where you will finally be safe and your 
waiting family can finally welcome you.
Then it doesn't happen that way.
You are returned to Sremska Mitrovica, where the supervisor of the 
Dubrava massacre works as a prison director, where torture of elderly 
Albanians was so severe that some died, where the ICRC rarely visits, 
where Serb nationalists and extremists have the upper hand. The 
official rhetoric is that you will be safer here. The truth is you 
would be safer in Kosova.
Sremska Mitrovica is where Bekim Mazreku was kept in solitary 
confinement for five months. He was tortured within an inch of his 
life. In January ,2000, an Albanian elderly man, age 64 and a 
diabetic, died pleading for medicine. His family in Kosova heard 
nothing about it for three weeks. This is the prison that kept a 17 
year old for two years, where he was raped by guards. This is the 
prison where it is policy that if you ask to see a doctor, guards 
beat you 80 times, even if you are 70. You are also beaten 80 times 
if you ask for salt. Why? The rhetoric is: Salt is a weapon that can 
be used against guards. This is the prison where the director strolls 
among the Albanian prisoners, saying if it weren't for the Hague, he 
would personally kill them all. Prisoners fear they will starve to 
death here. They often don't receive food packages.
Imagine that you have been sentenced to 20 years for a crime without 
evidence, by an arrest and interrogation conducted under the 
Milosevic regime, and that you have just been sent back there. In 
Bekim Mazreku's case, you are sentenced for killing someone who 
committed suicide in 1981.
The Albanian prisoners have been subjected to so many legal 
violations. So have their families.
No matter. The donor's conference will proceed as scheduled. The 
Europeans place economic growth over the most basic rule of law for 
those "other" Europeans, the Albanians. Lest we forget, NATO fought a 
war for their civil rights.



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KosovaLive 26 June 2001
http://kosovalive.com/english/latest.htm

Albanians Prisoners Transferred from Belgrade to Prisons Elsewhere in
Serbia

June 26, 2001
PRISHTINA (KosovaLive) - Albanians that have been held in the Belgrade
Central Prison have been transferred to the prisons of Nish and Sremska
Mitrovica, representatives of the International Committee of the Red
Cross (ICRC) said Tuesday.
     According to Red Cross representative Arbena Kuriu, there are no
longer any Albanians in Belgrade. "Nine Albanians have been transferred
to the prison in Nish and 52 to the prison at Sremska Mitrovica," Kuriu
told KosovaLive.
     The ICRC said it did not know why the prisoners were moved away from
Belgrade.
     Ibrahim Makolli, an official at the Council for the Protection of
Human Rights and Freedoms in Prishtina, said that the transfer of the
Albanian prisoners was done for security reasons.
     "An outbreak of disorder is anticipated because of Milosevic and
that is why the transfer has been done," Makolli told KosovaLive. In the
meantime, the Council for Humanitarian Rights in Prishtina said that
they did not have accurate information about the transfer.
     According to the data provided by the ICRC, 244 Albanians remain in
Serbian prisons. (bb)
_______________________________________________________________________
http://www.b92.net/archive/e/index.phtml?Y=2001&M=06&D=26

B92 NEWS Last update: Jun 26, 2001 20:25 CET

Albanians transferred from Belgrade central prison?

19:35 PRISTINA, Tuesday - Albanian fellow-inmates of Slobodan Milosevic
have allegedly been transferred from Belgrade central prison due to
fears the jail could erupt into riots.
A member of the Pristina Council for the Protection of Human Rights and
Freedoms, Ibrahim Makolli, said that prison sources had told him that
all Albanian prisoners had been transferred on security grounds.
"It is thought that riots might break out because of Milosevic," he
said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed that not a single
Albanian was left in the jail. Arbena Kuriu said she did not know the
reason for their transfer. (Kosovalive)
_______________________________________________________________________
http://128.121.251.38/bnews/bnews.php?language=english

Free Serbia Latest News

06/26/2001 14:43 GMT+2 --
Novi ekspres daily: 50 bodies uncovered in Belgrade suburb

50 bodies have been discovered to date in a mass grave in Belgrade
suburb Batajnica, reports Novi ekspres daily. International court
investigators are also involved in exhumations, Novi ekspres cites Hague
Tribunal sources. The Tribunal has engaged forensic experts and
anthropologists to cooperate with teams from the Belgrade Forensic
Institute to identify victims though DNA analysis. "Hague Tribunal
investigators seem to be satisfied with our work so far, which means the
Forensic Institute will most probably cooperate with international
investigators at other mass grave locations", reports Novi ekspres.
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