[Kcc-News] Prisoner Release: Kosovars Keep up Pressure for Prisoners' Release(Reuters, Nov 16, 2000)

[Mentor Cana]

http://www.centraleurope.com/yugoslaviatoday/news.php3?id=221050&section=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.

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