Serbian List Officials Reject Prosecutor's Calls

As reported in a communiqué, invitations have been sent to Serbian List Chairman Goran Rakic, Deputy Chairmans Igor Sibiu and Chairman of Headship Slavko Sini.

“On behalf of the Serbian List, we rely on the position that none of those on that list, including our members, will respond to that invitation, because it is a clear political persecution aimed at persecuting our people from these areas, as well as that in the event of anyone's arrest from that list, protests with all democratic and undemocratic means will follow, even the implementation of civil disobedience<1>, the statement states.

Rakiq, at a media conference on April 25th, said there was information that the Kosovo Special Prosecutor had initiated procedures against “citizens, businessmen, mayors of Serb municipalities, MPs and political representatives for attacking Kosovo constitutional order”.

“Talk about the events, whether for protests against Pristina's unilateral actions over the past year. This is a persecution of our people with ethnic and political motives. According to the information we have, it's about prosecution against more than 70 of our citizens,”, Rakic said, without specifying which protest this was about.

Kosovo police for the Northern Region earlier confirmed to Radio Free Europe that police are sending invitations to individuals, but have not specified exactly what is in those invitations.

According to the REL, Kosovo's Special Prosecutor and Interior Ministry has not answered questions sent in their direction.

Members of the Serbian community protested in October last year, following a Kosovo Police action to fight smuggling of goods in the Pristina, Peja, South Mitrovica and North Mitrovica regions.

Kosovo police have indicated that anti-x0-muge smuggling has been confiscated in that action by hundreds of thousands of euros”, as well as several alternative routes used for smuggling goods.

Earlier, the Serbian List has said it has asked Quint, US, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and France, that the “restrain Pristina from causing chaos in northern Kosovo”.

Also, local Serbs in northern Kosovo, in September last year, blocked border checkpoints in Jarinje and Brnjak for two weeks after the Kosovo government imposed reciprocal measures for Serbia's license plates.

At those crossings, all the time with citizens were representatives of the Serbian List.

In the end, Kosovo and Serbia reached agreement on extending the situation and on the temporary solution to the license plates, whether the two sides place white letters on state symbols.

The final agreement has had to be reached within six months and that deadline has expired in April, but no agreement has been reached, so the white-letter regime is still in force.