ZSO management team asks for protection

The management team called on EULEX to protect the rights of the Serb community in keeping with its mandate in cases of politicisation of the judiciary and abuse of legislature to political ends.He pointed to the cases of banishment or arrest of Serbs in the villages of Partes and Pasjane in the Gnjilane municipality and the detention of Serbs in the Strpce police station over the past few days.According to the data of the Citizen Initiative Srpska, the Kosovo police arrested or brought in for questioning a total of seven members of the Srpska electoral committees and observers from the villages of Partes and Pasjane in the middle of the electoral campaign. On Wednesday, the candidate of the Srpska electoral list and two activists from Strpce as the biggest Serb enclave in southern Kosovo were also brought in for questioning.This was done with the excuse that these individuals exerted pressure on voters although there is no tangible evidence to support this, the Srpska list released on Wednesday.The ZSO management team said that these were actions of fear and torture and recalled that not a single representative of the international community in Kosovo reacted to violation of the basic democratic rights and freedom of speech and expression of beliefs.At the same time, he warned that while various pressures are being exerted, the survival and sustainability of the Serb community in Kosovo is being hindered in the background by various means. One of the ways this is being done is the sale of property in municipalities with majority Serb population, such as the sale of the cooling storage facility in Silovo and the sale of 300 hectares of land in Gracanica, he said.The ZSO management team underscored that the sale of property and some other activities cannot be conducted while the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue on normalisation of relations is ongoing. Such activities cannot be done either without the participation of the Serb community, he said and warned the international community that all legal and democratic means will be used to prevent this.