Serbia Clearing Albanians of Registers

“I deleted”. Halime Beyqi of Albanian origin and administration no longer exists, cannot take care of himself, work, or vote in the upcoming elections.

Like her, there are thousands of Albanians who have been erased from the registers with a simple administrative decision: “pasatisation”.

In recent years at least 5,500 Albanian Serbs from Presevo Valley (in the South) have been expelled, according to official records published by the NGO Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR), documents that AFP could consult and researchers. “Exactly people of Albanian origin”, Y underlines IHR.

It is in this valley in southern Serbia that the largest Albanian population in Serbia lives around 58,000 people.

This region, very poor, was one of the stations of tension between Serbs and Albanians after the Kosovo War (1998-1999, 13,000 deaths).

At times, they even talked, on separate international plans, about exchanging this territory with a part of Kosovo populated mainly by Serbs. But, visiting Medvedja in 2019, Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq declared the town “was and would remain<x1 Serbian.

To lower the number of Albanians living in the south”, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia wrote in 2021, “The state is conducting this process of “disposing” (...) this measure is essentially some kind of ethnic cleansing with administrative means.

Flora Ferati-Sachsenmeier, a researcher at the University of Göttingen (Germany), is a specialist in the matter. According to her, the election list issue is central because it led to the capture of the city by President Aleksandar Vuciq's party. In between 2015 and 2019, the number of Albanian municipal advisers ranged from 8 to 3” for the town of Medvedja, she explains. The charges the government has always dismissed. The “Acusa that thousands of Albanians from the so-called Presevo Valley were removed from the electoral lists, claiming that police have passed their addresses and left them without personal documents are unacceptable and we dismiss them as absolutely inaccurate”, the minister of State Administration said. and Local Self-government Aleksandar Martinovic said in early December.

A Life Without an Address

By law, if the police find that one person does not reside in the given address, “passes” that address. It is possible to complain but only by presenting proof of cancellation. However, people contacted by the AFP claim they were unregistered even though they lived at home and explained no one has informed them. In most cases, they discovered that they no longer existed legally when trying to renew identity documents.

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These people literally become invisible. As for those who go to the police, they live in a nightmare because a new search of their residence may take the years”, explains Arben Ferati, the candidate PD in the Medvedja local elections.

In this municipality, between 2011 and 2020, more than 4,000 people have been unregistered, according to some sources, including the YIHR report released in the autumn and the study of the Helsinki Committee. They live in fear, do not leave their homes for months, and rarely do they agree to speak to journalists, for fear it will exacerbate their problems.

Halime Beyqi, 54, agreed to meet with an AFP team. Its address was “Passavua” in 2019. However, she is sitting in her home in a village near Medvedja, where she lives with her husband and children, where she tells her story. I was told that I have no right (...) to work or go to a doctor. This is an injustice. I feel bad because I've been married 36 years, I've never moved. And I was erased, she said.

Hakki Emini, from a neighboring village, lost his address because, according to the Interior Ministry, he had not declared living in Switzerland for years.

Just in 2020, when he wanted to vote in the last elections, the Serbian Embassy in Switzerland announced that he had no right to do so. I don't exist for Serbia, even though I have a house there and pay my bills regularly, my taxes,” explains it over the phone. “I appealed, but I've never received an answer to”, he said. His son was also expelled.

According to the law, however, explains Marko Milosavljevic, a researcher in the YIHR, “even when someone does not complain, police are obliged to give them an address -- that of their husband, their parents. No one can stay forever without an address. . This is possible only if one is stripped of citizenship or in the event of death”, he said.

As early as 2020, the Centre for Research, Transparency and Responsence (KRRT) had asked the Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-government to end removal from citizen election lists, whose addresses were “restored”.

“Noni 52 of the Constitution says any adult Serbian citizen has the right to vote and be elected. Therefore, the removal of electoral lists on the basis of presumption of addresses is unconstitutional”, says Pavle Dimitrijevic, KRT's principal lawyer and legal official.

Teuta Fazliu, born in Bujanoc, now employed in Pristina, Kosovo, is one of the few persons who has managed to file complaints. Its address in Bujanoc was passed in 2020, as according to the administrative court, on April 9, 2020 (during the curfew on the period of the period of the period of the period of the period of the War of Covid-19, police noted that she was not at home.

In 2020, I could be treated at the Bujanoc clinic, today it is no longer possible”, she complains, adding that she has lost the right to vote. “in 2022, prior to the last elections my name did not figure on the election list. I'll try to vote again in December... ” After an initial negative response from the administrative court, she complained to the Constitutional Court. In the event of a negative response, she has already planned to refer the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

According to a document provided by the YIHR, the number of voters registered on the Medvedja election lists during the 2015 local elections was 10,456. In 2022 the figure dropped to 6,147.

In a response to the AFP, the Ministry of Administration and State Institution has suggested that only three complaints were made against removal from election lists in this municipality from January 2019 to December 2022. The polls for years in the Presevo Valley were not immediately available, as they were “in the archive”. To eliminate any doubt, suggests Marko Milosavljevic, it would be sufficient for the Interior Ministry to publish full data for deregistered citizens” throughout Serbia. / RTK