Opposition disrupts Assembly’s work using teargas and whistles
(All monitored broadcasters, Klan Kosova & KTV)
Opposition parties have also used teargas to impede the Kosovo Assembly’s work. After many actions to prevent holding of Thursday’s session, be it by standing on their feet near the Speaker’s lectern, whistles, water and eggs were among the forms that opposition MPs used when they noted that a number of draft-laws were being passed, no matter the blockade that often was followed with tense situations and it almost erupted to physical clashes.
Vetëvendosje MP, Albin Kurti, also threw teargas within the Assembly room. As a consequence, PDK MPs – Flora Brovina and Blerta Deliu-Kodra fainted and sought medical assistance.
Despite the tensions created, Assembly Speaker Kadri Veseli said that he will not allow blockade of the Assembly for political interests.
Earlier during Thursday, the opposition MPs removed the covers placed over the murals with Albanian motives in Assembly’s hall.
Removal of the covers was disliked by Serbs, Klan Kosova reported.
“I am sorry to say, but Kosovo is not only of the Albanians. It is also of Serbs, Turks, Bosniaks… No matter that I respect the work of the artist that painted them, I do not see any sign of others in them, but of the Albanians,” Srpska List MP Nenad Rasic.
Opposition will not stop only with teargas
(All monitored broadcasters, KTV)
Teargas will not be the only tool that representatives of the opposition will use to prevent Assembly’s work until Prime Minister Isa Mustafa’s signature will be withdrawn from the Agreement on Association of Serb Majority Municipalities.
Following Thursday’s developments, the opposition parties have announced further blockade and use of other means.
AAK chairperson Ramush Haradinaj said that more serious actions will be taken than throwing of teargas.
Aside from not allowing holding of Assembly proceedings, the opposition backs up its actions and says that this situation has been created by the Government.
Nonetheless, MPs of the ruling parties consider actions of those in opposition shameful. They request immediate unblocking of the Assembly.
Assembly Speaker, Kadri Veseli, said that he does not consider necessary for President to intervene in solving of this situation. Few minutes before the teargas was thrown at the Assembly, Veseli said that opposition has chosen wrong forms.
Following the incident, LDK MPs have called on Speaker Veseli to create conditions for normal continuation of works, by not excluding even expulsion of opposition MPs from the Assembly room by security personnel.
Actions of opposition MPs at the Assembly condemned
(All monitored broadcasters, RTK1&KTV)
Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga considered acts of the opposition MPs at the Assembly of Kosovo ugly. President Jahjaga condemns the unacceptable acts which caused the interruption of Assembly of Kosovo proceedings for the third week in a row.
“These acts of the opposition deputies are ugly and in contradiction with the democratic practice and institutional behaviour which we are aiming to build,” President’s reaction states.
President Jahjaga invites Kosovo MPs to refrain from violence.
The Government of Kosovo also reacted against the situation created at Thursday’s session of the Assembly.
Through a press release issued, the Government also expressed its remorse for the violence that, according to it, a group of opposition members of Assembly used at the session.
Actions of some of the opposition MPs were also condemned by the Embassy of the United States of America in Kosovo.
”Weapons have no place in parliaments. The appalling conduct of certain opposition MPs, which necessitated medical attention for other MPs, as well as international observers, including staff from the U.S. Embassy, makes a mockery of one of Kosovo’s most important democratic institutions,” reads the reaction of the US Embassy.
“The United States strongly urges the opposition to renounce the use of violence as a political tactic and to constructively engage in the important work of the Assembly to advance the interests of the Kosovo people,” it adds.
The Council for Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms (CDHRF) considers throwing of teargas by the opposition at Thursday’s session anti-democratic.
“What happened in the Assembly today is violence. The lives of all MPs were endangered there. With such behaviour, opposition parties are damaging their image and are not contributing to their cause,” the CDHRF director Behxhet Shala said.
The British Ambassador to Kosovo, Ruairi O’Connell, also reacted against Thursday’s development at the Assembly of Kosovo. “I am appalled by today’s scenes at the Assembly. This was violence. Violence has no place in democracy,” Ambassador O’Connell said, RTK1 and other TV broadcasters reported.
Thursday’s violence at the Assembly of Kosovo was also condemned by the Head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Ambassador Jean-Claude Schlumberger.
The European Union also condemned violence used at the Assembly of Kosovo and called on MPs to bring Assembly’s work to normality.
Next Assembly plenary session scheduled for 15 October
(All monitored broadcasters, TV21)
Irrespective to the developments that happened on Thursday, the Kosovo Assembly Presidency decided that the next plenary session will be held on 15 October.
Deputy Speaker Xhavit Haliti said that the Presidency needs some time to analyse the situation at the Assembly, which, as he said, was not seen even in movies.
Opposition caucus leaders did not take part at this Assembly Presidency meeting.
Haliti said that the Presidency must see how security functioned, and how the opposition devices have entered the Assembly building.
