Around 20 citizens, including several candidates in the forthcoming local elections, blocked this morning the building of Vitina municipality, functioning in the system of the Republic of Serbia and located in the village of Vrbovac. The citizens do not allow anyone to enter the building, KIM Radio reported.

According to Goran Marinkovic, chair of the Active Civic Initiative, the reasons for blocking the building are the acts of the representatives of the local authorities who are permanently torturing, threatening, blackmailing and dismissing employees, who according to their opinion, do not support Srpska Lista or are candidates on the competing lists for the forthcoming local elections in Kosovo. “We have blocked the municipal building to end a dictatorship and intimidation of people, because people are dismissed if they think differently. We are all for the Srpka Lista, but we are against the current mayor Srecko Spasic who runs the terror against the people in this municipality. He threatened me personally saying “I will destroy your family,” just because my wife is a candidate for a municipal assembly on the list of Active Civic Initiative,” Marinkovic said, KIM radio reported. Additionally, Marinkovic claims that the chair of the Provisional Body of the Vitina municipality, dismissed him yesterday, and according to Marinkovic “asked that his wife and he publicly appear on the public service, apologize and publicly say they support Srpska Lista”. Meanwhile, Marinkovic’s wife was also dismissed from the school, respectively her contract was not extended. Aleksandar Rakic, graduated engineer of agronomy, was dismissed by the municipality, after 20 years of work. “I was dismissed because the leadership of the municipality and the mayor Srecko Spasic doubt I am not with them, with Srpska Lista. Srdjan Nikolic handed over a notice of dismissal to me, referring to some articles of the law, without clear explanation of what I did “wrong,” Rakic said to KIM Radio. Both of them would inform the prosecutor’s office in Gnjilane about it, and the blockade of the building would be continued in the coming days. “We will block the municipality until someone from the Office for Kosovo and Metohija would come and talk to us. If they do not come by Monday, we would go on hunger strike, Marinkovic said. The chair of the Provisional Body of the Vitina municipality Srdjan Nikolic and a mayor of Klokot, Srecko Spasic, were not available for comments, despite several phone calls, KIM radio concluded.