Why are Albanians in the Presevo Valley prohibited from using the national flag?

The Law for National Councils in Serbia in general competencies gives the National Council the right to define the proposals of national symbols, signs and holidays of the national minority.

But that is denied the Law for Protection of National Minority Rights and Freedoms in Serbia, which in Article 16 says that the national “ibol and signs cannot be identical to the symbol and signs of another state.

Albanian National Council Chairman Ragmi Mustafa has indicated that Serbia is today the only former Yugoslav republic inhabited by a national Albanian minority that bans Albanian national symbols by law.

The same symbols allowed in the Yugoslav monist system about 30 years ago are halted today in Serbia, which claims European democratic values”, Mustafa said.

According to him, Serbia's respective governments continue to trumpet that they are respecting the rights of Albanians living in Serbia.

“Precisely the legal ban on the use of national symbol by state authorities testifies to the discrimination and oppression of the state towards diversity, differing, which is not Serb”, Mustafa has said.

Albanian political representatives in the Presevo Valley, even though ruling with the municipality of Bujanovac, Presevo and the Albanian National Council have shown themselves unable to solve this problem that citizens and politicians have often been prosecuted by Serbia's courts.

Minority rights law in Serbia was approved in 2002, and Albanians by 2004 have also had problems using the flag in private as in the event of weddings, but at this time former O Commissioner The SEU for Minority Rights has intervened by sharing the issue of using the flag in private and official, preventing Serbia's authorities from mixing in private use.