REL: Pressure through threatening tracts in Cyrillic towards Serbs in the North · Global Voices

Those tracts suggest that owners do not receive Kosovo's temporary license subx0> and that for those who do so, there may be consequences.

Mladen says citizens are fed up with pressures, while in terms of establishing tracts, he says he has no idea who has been able to do so.

This could only be done at night and it's a matter for police”, Mladen said.

Even the other Serb citizen from this municipality, who was introduced by the name of Jugoslav, said that distributing the tracts with threats is a police issue, which, according to him, must find the people who have placed those tracts with threatening content to Serbian license owners.

This is not just one man. Many people have done this. Such a thing should be resolved”, Yugoslav said.

Threatening messages in times of tension between Kosovo, Serbia

But, all of this has happened at the time tensions between Kosovo and Serbia have risen, following the Kosovo government's decision to impose reciprocity measures with Serbia for plates on September 20th. Local Serbs have blocked roads near the border crossings in Jarinje and Brnjak.

This blockade of border crossings is now expected to be removed, given that Kosovo and Serbia's negotiating teams -- via the European Union on Thursday, September 30th -- have reached an agreement to expand the situation, remove barricades and attract Kosovo Police Special Units, as well as a temporary solution to the license plates.

Disatisfaction among Serbs in northern Kosovo also increased the announcement by Kosovo authorities that all plates issued by Serbian authorities for cities in Kosovo would be confiscated.

It's about acronym plates in Kosovo cities, KM (Kosovo's Mitrovica), The PR (Pristina), GL (Gjlan) and other license plates for other cities in Kosovo, which ten years ago were removed in Serb majority municipalities south of Ibri, under the Brussels Agreement on Freedom of Movement.

Although these plates are illegal for Kosovo authorities, Kosovo's Interior Ministry has told Radio Free Europe on 22 September that they would be allowed to reregister those vehicles, with RKS license plates.

“can register according to the same procedure as all other Kosovo citizens. They should only contact vehicle registration centres and receive all necessary information and details”, the Kosovo Ministry of Internal Affairs has said.

Petroniq: A non-serious threat from some patriots

Security Affairs Researcher Veroljub Petronic from the nongovernmental organisation Human Centre in Mitrovica, in a conversation with Radio Free Europe, said the tracts with threatening and offensive content, which are located in several vehicles in northern Kosovo, do not consider them a serious threat. This is because, according to him, a serious threat is primarily signed as an individual, an organization, a group of citizens, a resistance group, or an extreme group.

If there were any signatures, I would take that as a serious threat. But I think there are two possibilities for who's behind this. So or someone has guided young people to distribute those inscriptions across town or one of the young people has dared to do such a patriotic act, to send threatening messages, to say that we don't want these license plates”, Peroniq said.

He added, however, that threats against citizens not to take over Kosovo's license plates harm the citizens themselves, who, according to him, have no responsibility for the created situation over the license plates.

There should be no threat to citizens because a large number of them work on the southern side of the Iber River. They work in Gracanica, in the Priouspe, in Plemetin, in Pristina. They work in Kosovo institutions as well, but also in Serbian institutions, and they have to travel. They can't travel unless they get those temporary signs, RKS or whatever we call them. If they don't have those signs, they can't go to work. This also presents a major problem with freedom of movement”, Petronic said.

He stressed that it is not difficult for Kosovo police to identify people who have placed threatening inscriptions on citizens' cars -- at least in the Northern Mitrovica municipality -- because, according to him, most of the roads are monitored by cameras.

For more, according to him, it remains strange how the Kosovo Police have not observed the distribution of those inscriptions, since, as he said, such a thing was done at night, when in power it was the measure that prohibits the movement of citizens, as a measure to combat the body's pandemic.

Police Silence in Case

Kosovo's Ministry of Internal Affairs on Wednesday, September 29, through a media communique has strongly condemned “threats to citizens who are equipped with temporary signs according to the MPB's decision on September 20th 2021”.

“These threats are unacceptable and are hindering the free movement of people and goods”, the MPB said, adding that these cases are already being investigated by Kosovo Police that will take measures under the law.

Free Europe Radio has been addressed to the Kosovo Police with the question of whether any investigations have been launched concerning the distribution of threatening inscriptions placed on citizens' cars in the country's northern municipalities. But, so far police officials, responsible for media communication, have not responded.

Who's scaring the Serbs?

This is not the first time Serbs in the north of the country fear them in order not to integrate into the Kosovo system, or with the goal that Kosovo institutions fail to establish power in that area.

One of the examples is that three years ago, in Zubin Potok, this predominantly Serb municipality in the north of the country appeared tracts saying that Serb members of the Kosovo Security Force will be told “the remains of”.

Days ago, the Kosovo Automation Centre in Zubin Potok, where Serbian citizens received temporary RKS plates, burned. The similar centre in Zvecan was also attacked, upon which two hand grenades were dropped but did not explode.

That Serbs in the north are suffering some form of pressure, this they confirmed on September 23rd, some employees in Serbian institutions operating in Kosovo. With their identity not revealed, they confirmed to Radio Free Europe that there were “forced” to participate in blocking the Jarinje and Brnjak border crossings.

According to them, such demand came from local authorities, who are of the Serbian List, this main Kosovo Serb party that has the backing of official Belgrade.

The party's officials have not responded to the call of Radio Free Europe, but Igor Singleness, Serbian List official and Kosovo Assembly MP, in a statement to the Serbian state news agency Tanjug, has stressed that “citizens were voluntarily gathered at barricades” and that they have not been invited by any mayor from the north.

Speaking of barricades on roads leading to Jarinje and Brnjak, he said that “any mayor of the municipality is with their citizens there to maintain peace”.