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[Agron Alibali]

HLC - PRESS - JUDGMENT DELIVERED TO KOSOVO ALBANIANS TWO AND A HALF YEARS AFTER BEING PRONOUNCED

JUDGMENT DELIVERED TO KOSOVO ALBANIANS TWO AND A HALF YEARS AFTER BEING PRONOUNCED






Four Kosovo Albanians from the so-called "Urosevac Group" received the judgment handed down against them by the Pristina District Court two and a half years after the event. The Court thus denied these four men, who 
have been illegally held since June 1998, the right to defend themselves. Their defense counsel, including Humanitarian Law Center attorneys, can only now lodge an appeal with the Serbian Supreme Court. 

On 5 February 1999, a panel of the Pristina District Court presided by Judge Dragoljub Zdravkovic found 26 Albanians from the Kosovo town of Urosevac, 17 of whom were tried in absentia, guilty of seditious conspiracy and/or terrorism and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from two to 15 years. 

The Court's decision was based on confessions extracted by torture. Cen Dugolli and Rexhep Bislimi died in July 1998 after being tortured by State Security inspectors at the police station in Gnjilane and the Pristina prison. Xhavit Zariqi was severely beaten and subjected to electric shocks almost every day from 28 June to 20 July 1998 by State 
Security Inspectors Rajko Doder and Radovan Klaric and some 20 police officers. As a result of this brutal treatment, Zariqi, who was sentenced to three years in prison, is now unable to move about without assistance. 

Zariqi and Haxhi Bytiqi were released until their sentences become final as they received terms of less than five years. Enver Topalli and Ahmet Hoxha were killed during the NATO bombing of the Dubrava Penitentiary in Kosovo. Ilber Topalli was released in March 2001 under the Amnesty Act. 

Another four Kosovo Albanians - Sulejman Bytiqi, Besim Zumberi, Skender Ferizi and Agim Rechica - who are charged with of acts of terrorism, are still in the penitentiaries at Nis and Sremska Mitrovica. 

For more information please contact Mojca Sivert 
Tel./fax: 381 11 444-3944, 381 11 444-1487; e-mail: mojca at hlc.org.yu 

=======

News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty
International *

10 September 2001
EUR 01/004/2001
150/01


Europe is not immune from the scourge of enforced disappearances,
Amnesty International said today as human rights defenders and
relatives of the "disappeared" around the globe come together to
reclaim their right to truth and justice.

     The organization is calling on the governments concerned
to take any necessary steps to clarify all cases of
"disappearance" by conducting independent and impartial
investigations, with the aim of bringing all those responsible to
justice.

     "Not only does 'disappearance' infringe virtually all the
victims' personal rights, it subjects their families to agonizing
suffering, which has been recognised as tantamount to torture,"
Amnesty International added, stressing that "disappearances"
constitute a continuous or permanent offence as long as the fate
and whereabouts of the victims have not been determined.

     "The war in the former Yugoslavia brought to Europe human
rights violations on a scale not seen since World War II --
including scores of 'disappearances'," Amnesty International
said, recalling how at least 8,000 Bosniac men "disappeared"
after the Bosnian Serb army captured the UN-protected enclave of
Srebrenica in July 1995.

     In Bosnia-Herzegovina, six years after the end of the
war, 90 per cent of the 20,577 people registered with the
International Committee of the Red Cross as "disappeared" or
abducted remain unnaccounted for. While a DNA-based
identification program set up by the Missing Persons Institute
should speed up the identification of more than 4,000 bodies
exhumed to date, little progress has been made in investigating
"disappearances" and bringing the perpetrators to justice. In
Croatia a governmental commission for detained and missing
persons of Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY)
acknowledged for the first time in November 2000 that over 1,000
Croatian Serbs remained unaccounted for.

     In Kosovo more than 3,000 people remain unaccounted for.
Most are ethnic Albanians believed to have "disappeared" after
arrest by Serbian Police or paramilitaries between early 1998 and
June 1999.  In May and  June 2001, mass graves -- thought to
contain the bodies of ethnic Albanians transported out of Kosovo
in 1999 in refrigerated trucks  -- were discovered in Serbia.
Family associations of Serbs and Roma from Kosovo believe that
over 1,500 ethnic Serbs and Roma were abducted by the Kosovo
Liberation Army (UCK, KLA), during and after June 1999.
Abductions of minorities in Kosovo continue to be reported.

     During the conflict in Chechnya, over a thousand people
have simply "disappeared" in custody. The bodies of some of the
people who "disappeared" after being detained by Russian forces
were later sold to the relatives by the military or found in mass
graves.

     While the Office of the Special Representative of the
President of the Russian Federation for Human Rights in the
Chechen Republic has received 1,200 complaints concerning
arbitrary arrest and "disappearances", during the first part of
the year the procuracy -- the only agency in Russia authorized to
investigate crimes committed by Russian federal forces in
Chechnya -- has launched fewer than 150 investigations into
"disappearances". During cleansing operations carried out in the
last weeks, hundreds of Chechen men were detained and many
"disappeared" in custody.

     "However 'Disappearances' do not occur exclusively in
conflict situations, and appear to be used to silence opposition
figures and independent journalists," Amnesty International said,
citing the situation in Belarus.

     The organization recently expressed concern about the
possible "disappearances" -- reportedly ordered by very senior
appointees of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka -- of members of
the Belarussian opposition and of  Russian Public Television
cameraman, Dmitry Zavadsky, who apparently "disappeared" from
Minsk in July 2000. It has been alleged that the  Belarussian
police elite unit, Almaz, have been responsible for several
possible "disappearances" -- including those of Dmitry Zavadsky,
of former Minister of the Interior Yury Zakharenko, and the
Deputy Speaker of the dissolved Belarusian parliament Viktor
Gonchar, and his companion, Anatoly Krasovsky.

     In Ukraine, independent investigative journalist Georgiy
Gongadze, failed to return home to his family on 16 September
2000 after he left a friend's house in the capital, Kyiv. Six
weeks later, a decapitated body -- thought to be his -- was
reportedly found in a shallow grave not far from Kyiv. In late
November the Georgiy Gongadze affair escalated into a fully-blown
political scandal when President Leonid Kuchma was accused of
being implicated in the incident. Very little progress has been
made in determining who was responsible for the "disappearance".

     In Turkey, unacknowledged detentions carry a serious risk
of "disappearance". This was recently the case with two
representatives of the legal pro- Kurdish party HADEP, Serdar
Tanis and Ebubekir Deniz, who have been missing since 25 January
2001 when they were called to a gendarmerie station.

     In the former Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan,
"disappearance" can be part of a pattern of harassment against
members of religious groups, seen as a threat to the stability of
the government.

     In December 2000, Amnesty International received new
information about the 1995 "disappearance" of Abduvali Mirzayev,
the independent Imam of an Andijan mosque. The organization
learnt that Abduvali Mirzayev was reportedly held in an
underground cell of the Ministry of Internal Affairs immediately
after his arrest by officers of the National Security Service
(SNB) at Tashkent International Airport in August 1995. Abduvali
Mirzayev is one of four religious figures -- including two of his
assistants and  the leader of the banned Islamic Renaissance
Party -- to have "disappeared" between 1992 and 1997. The Uzbek
authorities have consistently denied any official involvement.

     "Thousands of families are being denied their basic right
to know the truth about what happened to their loved ones,"
Amnesty International said, renewing its call for each and every
case of "disappearance" to be investigated and for the impunity
that covers those responsible to come to an end.

Background
30 August is commonly commemorated as International Day of the
Disappeared. This custom was started by the Latin American
non-governmental organization FEDEFAM (Federación Latinoamericana
de Asociaciones de Familiares de Detenidos-Desaparecidos) and is
now marked all around the world.

     "Disappearance" is a global scourge, with instances
occurring in at least 30 countries throughout the world.  The
UN's Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances,
which has 45,998 outstanding cases of "disappearance" on its
registers.

     A "disappearance" occurs whenever there are reasonable
grounds to believe that  a person has been deprived of freedom by
the authorities or their agents, with the authorization, support
or acquiescence of the state, and the authorities deny that the
victim is held in their custody, thus concealing the victim's
whereabouts and fate, thereby placing the person outside the
protection of the law.
===

The Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada ("MHRMC") and Vinozhito (Rainbow) - Greece, would like to clarify the news report that was released on August 29, 2001 regarding the "Platform of Macedonian Minorities and Diaspora". 

While the MHRMC and Vinozhito did attend the "First Macedonian World Congress" in Skopje, Macedonia, along with several other Macedonian organizations from the Balkans and Australia, the reported platform was not endorsed or signed by our group. The platform was released by the United Macedonians Organization of Canada. 

The MHRMC and Vinozhito do not and will not endorse any particular programme of political change for the Republic of Macedonia as that state's citizens have the ability to do so through lawful, democratic processes. The MHRMC'and Vinozhito's sole objectives are to achieve human rights for oppressed Macedonians and other minorities in the Balkans. 

----------------------------------------------------------------

For those who missed the related newstory on the "Platform" here it is again:
_____________________________________

=========== MACEDONIAN INFORMATION AND LIAISON SERVICE ===========
The Independent MILS News, Est. 1992

-------- www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/5052 --------
Email: milsppp at soros.org.mk

===================Copyright c All Rights Reserved==================
MILS NEWS 
Skopje, Wednesday, August 29, 2001 


MILS SUPPLEMENT 
("Utrinski Vesnik", August 27, 2001)

MACEDONIA FACES DEPERSONALIZATION 
Macedonian organizations, movements and associations , fighting for 
greater national, ethnical, cultural, and religious rights on the 
Balkans and beyond , held their first Macedonian World Conference 
last weekend, in organization of the united Macedonians in Canada 
and Macedonian Human Rights Movement for Canada. The following 
associations attended the gathering: Macedonian human rights 
associations OMO Ilinden, OMO Ilinden Pirin - Bulgaria, Vinozito ( 
rainbow) - Greece, Bratstvo, Mir, and Med - Albania, MAK- Macedonian 
Association - Serbia, and Macedonian Human Rights Committee - 
Australia. The participants at the conference spoke of the status of 
Macedonian people in the Balkans and worldwide , adopted an Action 
program defining the methods for pursuing national and human rights 
and created a coordinating body in charge of its realization. 
Macedonian government and all other institutions were reminded that 
Macedonian state and Macedonian people should valiantly and 
dignifiedly resist all external pressures. That way, Macedonian name, 
language, flag, country's unitary character, and territorial integrity 
would remain intact . Otherwise, Macedonia faces depersonalization. 
Describing the current situation in the country `a result of years 
of traitorous politics of Macedonian politicians' the conference 
suggested a Platform for survival of Macedonian nation in Macedonia , 
the Balkans, and worldwide. This Platform suggests dismissal of the 
Parliament and scheduling of new parliamentary elections where 
Macedonian people would be given a chance to choose reputable, honest 
politicians aware of their national identity. All Albanian immigrants 
>from Kosovo with yet unregulated status should be expelled , whereas 
all citizenships granted in the last decade should be reassessed and 
taken away if found to represent threat to national security. 





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