From mentor at alb-net.com Wed Nov 1 13:30:42 2000 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 13:30:42 -0500 (EST) Subject: [Kcc-News] Dr. Flora Brovina released (fwd) Message-ID: Kosovo Albanian Activist Freed Updated 10:10 AM ET November 1, 2000 POZAREVAC, Yugoslavia (AP) - Prominent Kosovo Albanian activist Flora Brovina, sentenced to a long prison term last year for terrorism, was released Wednesday, witnesses and her lawyer said. Brovina left the prison here late Wednesday afternoon escorted by officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the U.N. human rights representative in Belgrade, her lawyers and officials of non-government human rights groups. "Justice has been served," lawyer Branko Stanic told reporters at the prison gate as Brovina was driven away. Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica's legal adviser, Filip Golubovic, was present at the prison. He brought the presidential order for Brovina's release, human rights officials said. In Kosovo's capital, Pristina, ethnic Albanian human rights activists said Brovina was expected to arrive Wednesday evening. Her husband and son were driving to the boundary at Medare to welcome her, they said. Brovina, a 50-year-old pediatrician and women's rights activist, has become a rallying point for people in Kosovo, a majority-ethnic Albanian province in southern Yugoslavia. Hundreds of ethnic Albanians have been held in Serb jails since the Kosovo conflict, which began when then-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic sent troops into the province to crush separatist sentiment there. Hopes for the prisoners' release have risen with Milosevic's ouster from power last month and his replacement by Kostunica. From mentor at alb-net.com Fri Nov 17 10:27:47 2000 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 10:27:47 -0500 (EST) Subject: [Kcc-News] Prisoner Release: Kosovars Keep up Pressure for Prisoners' Release(Reuters, Nov 16, 2000) Message-ID: http://www.centraleurope.com/yugoslaviatoday/news.php3?id=221050§ion=Kosovo Kosovars Keep up Pressure for Prisoners' Release PRISTINA, Nov 16, 2000 -- (Reuters) Tens of thousands of protesters blocked the centre of the Kosovo capital Pristina on Wednesday in one of the largest in a series of daily rallies to demand the release of Kosovo Albanians in Serbian jails. The demonstrators, carrying large photographs of jailed relatives and placards with slogans such as "Freedom for All", thronged an area close to the headquarters of the province's United Nations administration. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority has been demanding the release of the prisoners, now thought to number at least several hundred and detained during NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia, since the end of the Kosovo conflict last year. They stepped up their protests last week after revolts broke out in several Serbian jails amid fears that Albanian prisoners could be targets of violence by the rebels. Serbian officials have said all ethnic Albanian prisoners are safe. Mothers of ethnic Albanians imprisoned or missing in the Kosovo war have been staging a day-and-night sit-down protest in central Pristina since Tuesday of last week. They have been joined by demonstrators every day to back their cause. "We mothers with broken hearts thank you for standing with us until everyone is freed or found," Luljeta Sharani, whose husband and two sons are missing, told Wednesday's rally. UN police officers on the scene estimated more than 50,000 people had gathered for the protest. Children tied together by mock chains with fake blood splattered across white shirts were among the protesters, standing below a big screen with the words "UN Act Now". The protesters want the UN to put more pressure on new Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica to release the prisoners. Lawyers are drawing up an amnesty law for political prisoners at Kostunica's request but its precise contents are unknown. According to International Red Cross sources in Pristina, 729 ethnic Albanians are in Serbian prisons and 3,500 are registered as missing. Kosovo remains legally part of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia but has been run as a de facto international protectorate since the end of the conflict in June of last year. (C)2000 Copyright Reuters Limited. ____________________________________________________________________ **************** FREE ALBIN KURTI ************** http://www.FreeAlbinKurti.com/ ____________________________________________________________________