[ALBSA-Info] Fwd: [A-PAL] oct. 13, 2000 a-pal newsletter

[irma spaho]

>A-PAL: KOSOVA PRISONER ADVOCACY ---OCTOBER 13, 2000
>
>WE URGE OUR READERS TO KEEP UP THE STRONG PUBLIC PRESSURE ON PRESIDENT
>KOSTUNICA TO PROVE THAT HIS CLAIM TO CREATE A LAWFUL AND DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY
>IN SERBIA IS MEANINGFUL--HE HAS NO EMAIL ADDRESS, NOR IS THERE CURRENTLY A
>SERB MINISTER OF JUSTICE TO WRITE TO. BUT YOU CAN WRITE TO:
>
>Javier Solana                    Tony Blair: gbrun at undp.org
>Council Secretariat              OSCE Secretariat: info at osce.org
>Rue de la Loi 1715               Jaques Chirac-fraun at undp.org
>Brussels B1048                   Madeleine Albright-secretary at state.gov
>Belgium                          US Senate For. Affairs--Sen. Wellstone,
>Lugar,
>                                  Helms, Biden, Lieberman
>
>____________________________________________________________
>
>
>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
>
>SERBIA/E.U.: HUMAN RIGHTS AGENDA FOR THE NEW YUGOSLAVIA
>
>(New York, October 12, 2000)—European leaders who will meet Serbia's new
>president Vojislav Kostunica this weekend should send the message that
>human rights must be at the top of his agenda, said Human Rights Watch
>today. The European Union Council, which  meets on Friday in Biarritz,
>has invited Mr. Kostunica to attend their session.
>
>"This is an important time for European leaders to discuss with
>President Kostunica a fresh vision for human rights and democracy in the
>new Yugoslavia," said Rachel Denber, Acting Director of Human Rights
>Watch's Europe and Central Asia. "Key issues range from transferring
>indicted war criminals to the Hague to re-establishing the independence
>of the judiciary. They are critical to restoring the rule of law to a
>country that for so many years languished under authoritarianism."
>
>Monday the E.U. dropped most sanctions against the former Yugoslavia.
>These sanctions were imposed in 1998 and 1999 to punish the Milosevic
>government for war crimes in Kosovo.
>
>"The E.U. is of course keen to see Yugoslavia reintegrated into European
>institutions," said
>Denber, "But part of re-integration is that the new government in
>Belgrade—when it's formed—will eventually have to cooperate with the war
>crimes tribunal in the Hague. It's an indispensable part of the rule of
>law package for Europe."
>
>  Ms. Denber listed some of the most important
>human rights issues on the horizon as including:
>
>   the release of political prisoners;
>
>   reinstating judges, university professors, and others who were fired
>for political reasons;
>
>   restoring the independence of the judiciary,
>
>and bringing to justice
>police and security officials responsible for serious abuses during the
>Milosevic era.
>
>Serbian human rights groups estimate that some 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. [See Human Rights Watch's October 10 press release, at
>www.hrw.org/press/2000/10/yugo1010.htm] Today a Serbian court will
>re-hear the cases of several of these prisoners, including 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 absurd charges of conspiracy to
>commit "hostile
>activity" and terrorism.
>
>President Kostunica is opposed to the war crimes tribunal in the Hague
>and has said he does not intend to hand over former president Slobodan
>Milosevic. Denber said that the E.U. should make clear that
>non-cooperation with the tribunal is unacceptable, and that cooperation
>would be a condition for certain loans and credits. "The E.U. and other
>institutions should treat Yugoslavia's cooperation with the tribunal on
>the same terms that it treated Croatia and Bosnia," she said. Last year
>the E.U. governments postponed a decision about a consultative task
>force on contractual relations with Croatia due to limited cooperation
>with the tribunal.
>
>For further information, please contact:
>Rachel Denber (New York): +212-216-1266
>Bogdan Ivanisevic (Belgrade): +381-63-832-9032
>
>_______________________________________________________________________
>http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,381871,00.html
>
>New hope for Kosovans in Serb jails
>
>Rory Carroll in Pozarevac and Ewen MacAskill
>Friday October 13, 2000
>
>Sixteen months after being spirited out of Kosovo, Serbia's forgotten
>prisoners are counting on revolution to end their daily round of torture
>and corruption.
>      Jails are softening their regimes as pressure piles on the new
>Yugoslav president, Vojislav Kostunica, to release the hundreds of
>jailed ethnic Albanians.
>      However, Mr Kostunica wants to link their fate to the question of
>missing Serbs. He has indicated a pardon would be possible only after
>more than 1,000 Serbs who disappeared in Kosovo are accounted for.
>      About 2,000 ethnic Albanians, arrested in Kosovo in the runup to
>last year's war, were transferred to jails in Serbia as the Nato bombing
>began. Lists are incomplete but the estimates of those still being held
>range from 600 to 900.
>      Little has been heard of the prisoners since they vanished into
>jails in the cities of Nis, Sremska Mitrovice and Pozarevac.
>      In Pozarevac, the Milosevic family's home town, claims of beatings
>and killings have been made.
>      Guards allegedly formed two lines to greet the arrivals with a game
>of "hot rabbit". One by one the Albanians were ordered to run through
>the lines while fists, boots and sticks rained down.
>      Some of the prisoners, aged 14 to over 70, were wounded during
>their journey from Kosovo. "And do you know what?" said one prison
>source. "Not one of them made a sound. They didn't scream or beg for
>mercy.
>      "The beatings were savage but the longer it went on, the more the
>guards came to respect them. They had dignity and were tougher than Serb
>prisoners," the source said.
>      A former prisoner told the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre
>that between seven and nine inmates were bludgeoned to death with
>chains. There has been no independent confirmation.
>      "Serbian prison guards tend to be badly educated and don't know
>much about human rights," said Gradimir Nalic, a lawyer who has defended
>some of the ethnic Albanians.
>      Mr Nalic said a mafia-type extortion racket offered freedom to
>those who could afford to bribe judges, prosecutors and guards. "Those
>left behind were the poorest."
>      Another lawyer, Husnija Bitic, a Kosovo Albanian who has
>represented many of those in prison, cuts an incongruous figure. For the
>most part, he looks like any other lawyer, dressed in a grey pinstripe
>suit. The oddity is his baseball cap.
>      He has good reason to wear the cap: a 7cm hole in his skull, the
>result of a beating by masked men who burst into his home in Belgrade on
>March 16. He had faced a series of death threats for working with the
>prisoners.
>      Mr Bitic listed lots of cases of people being held without any
>evidence and of people being sentenced without the prosecution even
>putting up cases. He has not worked since the beating.
>      At one stage he represented Flora Brovina, one of the best-known
>Kosovan prisoners whose retrial was postponed yesterday until November
>16. She is accused of assisting the Kosovo Liberation Army by supplying
>medicine, treating wounded fighters and helping to supply them with
>uniforms. Although her 12-year sentence was quashed on appeal, a retrial
>was then ordered. There is increasing speculation that she may be
>released.
>      Mr Bitic was particularly upset about the fate of another client,
>Ukshin Hoti, the leader of one of the Kosovan parties. He was allegedly
>released in May last year without Mr Bitic's knowledge and has not been
>seen since.
>      Paul Miller, based in Skopje as a field researcher for the human
>rights group Amnesty International, said: "Our first challenge to
>Kostunica to prove his commitment to the rule of law is to release
>prisoners of conscience such as Flora Brovina."
>      Apart from a group of 144 mostly students and middle- class
>professionals from the Kosovo town of Djakovica, the prisoners tend to
>be farmers or labourers.
>
>Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000
> >----------------------------------------------------------
>KOMITETI SHQIPTAR I HELSINKIT
>ALBANIAN HELSINKI COMMITTEE
>RR.  Sami Frashëri, Pall. 20/1, Hyrja B, Ap. 21, Tirana - ALBANIA
>Tel-Fax: ++ 355 42 336 71/40891      e-mail: helsinki at ngo.org.al
>
>RELEASE ALBANIANS WHO ARE KEPT IN SERBIAN PRISONS
>
>The broad international opinion has welcomed the last changes in Serbia
>which led to Milosevic's removal from the position of the President of
>Yugoslavia.  Milosevic is the root of many upsetting events within the
>Former Federation of Yugoslavia.  He is the representative of the typical
>Serbian chauvinism which has been the source of severe crisis especially in
>the Balkans.
>
>However the changes in Belgrade will be appreciated if the brutal 
>repressive
>system which Milosevic and his group has left behind will be denounced and
>strongly combated.  Righteously enough, concrete steps are required in this
>direction.  One of the factors which show the readiness of the new
>leadership to open a new page and put Yugoslavia on the pathway to 
>democracy
>is the respect of human rights.  One of the first requirements in this 
>field
>is the release of the political prisoners.  Among them there are thousands
>of Albanians sentenced in the framework of the repressive campaign which 
>has
>been enforced for years now in  Kosova.
>
>The AHC supports their request for their immediate release.  We greet the
>initiatives which have been undertaken by several official and social
>circles within Yugoslavia and abroad.  The AHC greets especially the open
>and common letter of International Helsinki Federation and the Serbian
>Helsinki Committee which has been sent to the new Yugoslavian president Mr.
>Kostunica where among other requests was the release of the Albanian
>prisoners who are victims of the Serbian regime.  The American organization
>of the human rights "Human Rights Watch" has strongly supported this
>initiative as well.
>
>The AHC addresses the appeal to the international community so that they
>make this request among the first ones to the Yugoslavian leadership.  A
>quick reaction to the release of the Albanian prisoners is expected from 
>the
>community of all human rights organizations in Europe.
>
>__________________________________________
>
>Postponement of Brovina trial – obstruction of process
>
>12 October 2000
>The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) strongly protests against the unjustified
>postponement of the new trial of Dr Flora Brovina and her continuing
>detention. The trial was scheduled to open today.  However, Judge Marina
>Milanovic who presides the panel, and Dragoljub Zdravkovic, a member of the
>panel, both from Kosovo, failed to appear in court. Counsel for the defense
>requested their recusal because of bias and obstruction of process.
>
>Judge Saveljic, who is not assigned to the case, informed the defense and
>prosecution that the trial had been put off until 16 November because of 
>the
>alleged illness of Judge Marina Milanovic.  On 10 October, however, he told
>the HLC that Judge Milanovic had taken “a few days leave to redecorate her
>apartment, but the trial will be held as scheduled.” No explanation was
>given for the absence of Judge Zdravkovic.
>
>Defense counsel Rajko Danilovic accused Prosecutor Miodrag Surla of bias 
>and
>said he had brought the same indictment in spite of the Serbian Supreme
>Court’s finding that no evidence was presented at the first trial to prove
>that Dr Brovina had committed the charged criminal offenses. Surla replied
>that he could not amend the indictment without the approval of Federal
>Public Prosecutor Vukasin Jokanovic, who is currently on a visit to China.
>Co-counsel for the defense, Branko Stanic, noted that Flora Brovina had 
>been
>held in custody without extension of her detention order since 16 May when
>the Supreme Court quashed the Nis District Court’s decision and ordered a
>retrial. Because of this violation, he moved that Dr Brovina be released on
>recognizance.
>
>After leaving the court, defense lawyers, reporters and Dr Brovina’s 
>husband
>visited her at the Pozarevac prison where she told them she had been
>notified of the postponement at 9.30 that morning.
>
>Last December, the panel of the District Court in Nis presided by Judge
>Marina  Milanovic found Flora Brovina guilty of seditious conspiracy in
>conjunction with terrorism and sentenced her to 12 years in prison.
>Considering the appeal, the Serbian Supreme Court in May this year set 
>aside
>the decision and ordered a new trial.
>  _____________________________________
>
>
>
>
>The director of the Centre for Human Law, Natasa Kandic said today that
>there
>are still about a thousand political prisoners in Serbia. Kandic and lawyer
>Rajko Danilovic appealed to the Serbian Supreme Court to grant clemency to
>these as they had in the case of Kraljevo journalists Miroslav Filipovic,
>who
>was released yesterday.
>
>Kosovo Albanians in Serbian jails were political prisoners, said Danilovic,
>and had not been accused and convicted of classical criminal acts. Such a
>show of mercy would greatly facilitate the return of Serbs to Kosovo, he
>said, and was imperative if Yugoslavia wanted to be part of Europe.
>
>Kandic quoted Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica as saying that the
>question of Albanian prisoners was connected with the fate of prisoners in
>secret jails in Kosovo. "It is not correct for prisoners now in custody to
>be
>retained as hostages for future negotiations," she added.
>
>  ------------------------------------------
>
>Families of Kosovo abductees appeal to Kostunica
>
>PRISTINA, Wednesday -- The Alliance of Families of Abducted and Missing
>Persons in Kosovo today appealed to Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica
>not
>to allow the release of Albanian prisoners now held in Serbia until
>information was obtained about missing Kosovo Serbs. The Alliance informed
>the president that they had information that armed and uniformed Albanian
>organisations in Kosovo had kidnapped about 1,200 persons between 1998 and
>this year.
>
>"We ask you in the name of the pain and uncertainty we have lived in for 
>the
>past three years to accept our suggestion not to allow the release of
>convicted Albanians until the fate of our innocent family members is 
>known,"
>said the Alliance.
>-----------------------------------------------------
>FreeB92  Last update: Oct 13, 2000 17:11 CET
>
>Protesters call for Albanians to be released
>
>17:03 PRISTINA, Friday - Thousands of Albanians from all over Kosovo
>today gathered in the centre of Pristina to call for Kosovo Albanian
>prisoners in Serbian jails to be released.
>      Protest leader Surije Redza demanded that the prisoners be released
>indiscriminately.
>      Former Kosovo Liberation Army leader Hashim Thaqi said that,
>together with the United Nations, Albanians would apply pressure on the
>Belgrade regime in order to resolve the situation of Albanians who had
>disappeared or been imprisoned.
>      Thaqi, saying that the demands would relayed to senior officials of
>the international community, said that there was no was for Serbia to
>build a democratic state while it continued to run prisons and
>concentration camps.
>_______________________________________________________________________
>h

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