Ethnic Serb Police officers in Kosovo Resigned & more –22nd Aug 2023

nd of August: 2023

On Thursday the 17th of August, three ethnic Serb police officers in Kosovo resigned only a month after taking their oath of office. Although none of the officers commented on their resignations, Kosovo’s president Vjosa Osmani blamed Serbia for this situation. Osmani said that Serbia intimidated these officers, by continuously condemning Serbian citizens who are in favor of integration.

Additionally, the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo and the US ambassador in Pristina expressed their concerns and said that a multi-ethnic country needs a multi-ethnic police force. Jorn Rohde, the German ambassador to Kosovo, added that members of the Kosovo Police should be able to do their jobs without intimidation, regardless of their ethnic group.

These officers started working in late July, when Kosovo police recruited around forty ethnic Serbs to fill the vacancies in the Kosovo north, after the mass resignation of Serbian officers. These mass resignations were the result of the cancellation of license plates issued by Serbian authorities for cities in Kosovo.

One of the aftermaths of the passive Serbia-Kosovo feud is the increasing shortage of medicines and medical supplies in Kosovo due to the ban on the import of goods originating from Serbia.

The director of the Gracanica, a Health Center in Kosovo, said that doctors are facing difficulties in their work. She said that for two months, the center has not received any shipments of medicines, medical supplies, and other disposable materials. A director from another health center in Kosovo said that the situation is alarming since they only have enough medicine for another two weeks.

Last week, the Vranje Higher Court banned the movies The Unfaithful and Silence Kills, which were produced by Gani Veseli, an ethnic Albanian director living in Serbia. The House of Culture in Bujanovac, a municipality in the south of the country, planned to show Veseli’s movies on the 10th of June. However, the police took the director of the House of Culture and Veseli to the police station in order to question them on the 9th of June, making them unable to screen the two movies.

The court banned The Unfaithful because they said it portrayed Serbia in a bad way, even though Veseli disagrees. In order to lift the ban on the second movie, Silence Kills, the court told Veseli that he had to remove the sign “Republic of Kosovo”. The court said that the sign promoted the idea of Kosovo’s independence, which Serbia does not recognize. Veseli, however, refused to do so, because Kosovo had financed the films. He then added that he feels sorry for the artists in Serbia, saying that these bans are direct censorship of film and art.

The sixteenth Serbia Against Violence protest was held on Saturday the 19th of August in Belgrade. The theme of the protest was education, where the protesters questioned the safety of children in schools. One of the organizers said that the two massacres which happened in May meant nothing to officials in Serbia, condemning them for not taking any action to protect the children in schools. Many students attended the protest while carrying signs that read Students Against Violence. One of them said that the lack of reaction from the state is empowering more students to participate in the protests in order to amplify the concerns of the citizens, adding that the officials cannot ignore Serbia Against Violence protests forever.

On Monday the 21st of August, dozens of citizens gathered in Novi Sad to show support for the women of Bosnia and Herzegovina because two women recently lost their lives to domestic violence. One of the attendees stressed the fact that one of the murders had a live broadcast on the internet, adding that femicides still happen even when the world is watching. Aside from commemorating the two women, those who gathered in Novi Sad demanded that Serbian institutions protect women from domestic abuse. The activists placed twenty-four red pairs of shoes at the Freedom Square in the city’s center, to symbolize the twenty-four femicide cases in Serbia as of twenty twenty-three. After the gathering ended, the participants decorated Freedom Square with messages of support for women in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Speaking of violence…

Maja Sever, the president of the European Federation of Journalists, expressed her concerns over the safety of journalists in Serbia, adding that politicians are often the ones that incite violence against journalists. She said that the politicians in Serbia target journalists by campaigning against them, usually on social but also in traditional media, which threatens their freedom and pluralism. Sever said that politicians are crossing the boundaries of respectful criticism and that she fears for the safety of journalists in Serbia. She added that the only way to improve the situation in the country is to align its policies with those of the EU.

The Belgrade Center for Security Policy published the results of the public opinion survey on judicial institutions, and public security in Serbia. Citizens rated several security and judicial institutions from one to five, with one being the lowest grade and five the highest, based on how much they trust them. These public institutions were the military, firefighters, police, courts, and public prosecutor's office, among others.

The results show that citizens trust firefighters the most, with the average grade being over four, and the public prosecutor's office the least, with an average grade of almost three. In reaction to the survey results, many citizens repeatedly stated that they do not trust institutions in Serbia in general. As for the reasons, they said that public institutions are often very corrupt and that the employees in them rarely do their jobs.

In some economic news,

On Wednesday the 16th, Jorgovanka Tabakovic, the governor of the National Bank of Serbia, or NBS, said that she expects the inflation to be around eight percent at the end of the year. At the NBS presentation of the August Inflation Report, Tabakovic said that the year-on-year inflation is decreasing, hitting twelve percent in July which is almost four percent lower than in March.

Tabakovic said that inflation will likely rise again in twenty twenty-four, but that it will be within the target tolerance band, as the state will tighten monetary conditions in June and July of twenty twenty-four.

The State Pension and Disability Insurance Fund, better known as the PIO fund, launched a tender for the procurement of a software that will allow employees in Serbia to send and manage payment requests. The PIO fund announced that the budget for this service will be around 800,000 dollars. They said that they are commissioning an online platform that aims to provide citizens with the service which will determine whether they have met all the prerequisites to retire and estimate the amount of their future pension. The new software will also inform employers whether they have fulfilled their obligations toward their employees. The tender is open until the 19th of September.

In other news…

twenty twenty-three is looking to be a record-breaking year for tourism in Serbia. In the first six months, almost one million foreign tourists visited Serbia, which is an increase of thirty percent compared to twenty twenty-two. During this period, the tourist revenue amounted to nearly one billion dollars. The Assistant Minister of Tourism from the Tourism Inspection Sector said that in twenty twenty-three, the number of tourists from China doubled in comparison to twenty twenty-two. The majority of foreign tourists came from Russia, Turkey, Bosnia and Croatia.

In some health-related news…

This week, The Milan Jovanovic Batut Institute of Public Health reported fourteen more cases of West Nile fever in Serbia. The institute said that the infected patients are predominantly male and around sixty years old on average. West Nile fever is a disease transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito and the transmission season usually lasts from June to November.

That’s it for this week! Thanks for joining us!

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