The Mysterious Cameras Watch the Partesh Ranillug

A tricolored side bridge, passing through a verdant area, marks the entrance to the Ranillug municipality, some 70 km from Pristina. Once the bridge is crossed, as if to welcome people entering this predominantly Serb residential town, there is a security camera on an electric pole.

The camera, without any visible brands, but with the same design, are located on several streets of Ranillug and surrounding villages.

Who owns the cameras, who set them up and who controls them is unknown.

Under the law in effect in Kosovo, monitoring public camera spaces can only be done for the needs of the Kosovo Police.

Radio Free Europe, during the first week of October, has seen such cameras placed mainly on public roads but also occupying private homes.

Some citizens of this area, who refused to speak publicly, expressed no worries about the presence of these cameras. They said they have no idea who controls them.

The Kosovo Information and Private Agency has inspected this municipality on June 18th. According to the report, the Ranillug municipality itself has told the agency that they don't know who set them up and who controls security cameras on public roads.

Municipal officials have said the municipality has set up cameras that are controlled by responsible officials only around its building.

The municipality, too, has told the agency that there were times when it needed access to footage taken by cameras on the streets but that it did not know where to look.

According to Kosovo Police data, 19 cameras are located throughout the territory of Ranillug and the four villages of this municipality, which are unknown to which they are monitored. For this situation, the Agency for Information and Private has addressed the State Prosecutor on August 31st.

In a statement to Radio Free Europe, Chief State Prosecutor Besim Kelmendi's taskman, has confirmed that he has asked all key prosecutors to verify accepted information on the matter.

“We are awaiting results of this verification”, the statement said.

Gjilan's attorney, who also has jurisdiction over the Ranillog area, until the moment this article is published, has not responded to REL's interest in what has been done in investigating this case.

Nobody talks about cameras in Partesh

About 40 minutes from Ranillug, in Partesh, are also seen in white - and - shaped, oval - shaped cameras alike in Ranillug.

Neither the Kosovo Police nor the Agency for Information and Private have data on the exact number of such cameras posted in this municipality.

Free Europe Radio has encountered at least five in Partesh and in the two surrounding villages, respectively, Pasyan and Budrik and the Low.

According to the Agency for Information and Privateness, which has also inspected the Partesh municipality area, municipality officials have not shown co-operation in providing information about these cameras. This municipality has not even answered Radio Free Europe questions about who controls them. The Information and Private Agency has also been addressed to the State Prosecutor for these cameras.

By whom are cameras controlled in other municipalities in Kosovo?

Over the course of this year, the Information and Private Agency has conducted searches in Kosovo municipalities to see if cameras in public spaces are being conducted under law.

So far, according to her, 13 municipalities have been inspected, including: Pristina, Gracanica, Peja, Gjilan, Ranillug, Partesh, Gjakova, Fushe Kosovo, Prizren, Shrpca, Ferizaj, Lipjanin and Shqimen.

According to some public reports from these inspections, it has been found that in some monitoring municipalities it was made by itself, which have also installed the camera system, rather than by police, as required by the law.

Among the municipalities that have done so are: Gjakova, Pristina, Gracanica and Peja.

The Information and Private Agency has ordered them to destroy the material collected by that time and camera control to continue to be done only by the police.

In municipalities like: South Mitrovica, Skenderaj, Suhareka, Dragash, Mamusa and Kamenica, according to the official report by Kosovo Police, monitoring public camera spaces is done only by Kosovo Police.

Under the Agency for Information and Privateship plan, inspection of other municipalities on the entire territory of the Republic of Kosovo will take place by the end of this year.

Security cameras in another Serb majority municipality in Shtrpce have been the target of a Kosovo Police operation 7 July. They have been seized by police, since they are allegedly located by the Serbian illegal structures.

The action, however, is not related to the inspection of the Information and Private Agency.

Mystery cameras even north of the country

In July of this year, Radio Free Europe has reported that security cameras -- not known who controls them -- also monitor public spaces in the four municipalities in northern Kosovo, inhabited by Serb majority.

Such cameras are located in northern Mitrovica, Zvecan, Zubin Potok's Leposaviq.

These municipalities have not yet been inspected by the Kosovo Agency for Information and Private.

The Kosovo Police Regional Directorate in Northern Mitrovica has told Radio Free Europe that in northern municipalities, Kosovo Police have installed surveillance cameras only in police stations. “

All other surveillance cameras are not under the jurisdiction of the Kosovo Police and there is no official supervision over them”, police have said at the time.

The municipalities in northern Kosovo, operating according to the Kosovo system, but also have the presence of parallel organs funded from Serbia's budget, have not answered REL questions about who has installed the video surveillance in municipalities in northern Kosovo and who controls them.