• COVID-19: 31 new cases, no deaths (media)
• Kosovo to receive another 3,500 anti-COVID 19 vaccines on Monday (media)
• Borrell supports visa liberalisation for Kosovo (media)
• Kosovo PM revives plan to sue Serbia for genocide (BIRN)
• Kosovo’s top leaders write to UNESCO (media)
• Kurti: We’re committed to protecting cultural heritage in our country (media)
• Osmani: Serbia destabilising the region by joint exercise with Russia (media)
• Kosovo with footnote in regional agreement for free movement (Koha)
• Government keeps secret international experts for dialogue with Serbia (Koha)
• Protest against sexual violence against women and girls in Peja today (media)
• Kosovo prosecution sues power plant’s Austrian manager for damages (BIRN)

COVID-19: 31 new cases, no deaths (media)

Kosovo has recorded 31 new cases of COVID-19 and no deaths from the virus in the last 24 hours.

Kosovo to receive another 3,500 anti-COVID 19 vaccines on Monday (media)

Several news websites reported on Sunday that Kosovo will receive another 3,500 Pfizer vaccines against the coronavirus on Monday, as part of the donation from the European Union.

Borrell supports visa liberalisation for Kosovo (media)

Several news websites report that European Union High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security, Josep Borrell, said that Kosovo has met all the requirements in the visa liberalisation process. The EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) quoted in a Twitter post Borrell as saying, “Kosovo’s visa liberalisation is long overdue: the country has met all related criteria and we now need to make progress on this issue. I will fully support this. I will also facilitate another High-Level Belgrade Pristina Dialogue meeting in June.”

Kosovo PM revives plan to sue Serbia for genocide (BIRN)

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said this month that he wants to take a genocide case against Serbia to an international court - two years after former Kosovo Assembly speaker Kadri Veseli made a similar threat.

In June 2019, lawmakers in the Kosovo Assembly approved a draft resolution demanding justice for a total of 186 massacres committed by Yugoslav Army troops and Serbian police and paramilitary forces during the war in Kosovo and calling for a new tribunal to try crimes against humanity and genocide against ethnic Albanians during the 1998-99 war.

Veseli argued that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s regime had the intent to destroy Kosovo Albanians as a group, thereby committing genocide as defined in the UN’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. He called for a new international tribunal to prosecute Serbs.

But Veseli’s proposal was described as political opportunism by opponents within Kosovo, and dismissed by international experts as impractical and extremely unlikely to succeed.

Nothing was done to push forward the initiative, and then Veseli himself was arrested last November for allegedly committing war crimes and crimes against humanity when he was a Kosovo Liberation Army guerrilla, and sent to the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague to stand trial.

Now the idea is being revived by Veseli’s former opponent, Kurti, a left-wing politician who became prime minister in March and is pushing the idea of an international court case in a similar manner to Veseli in 2019.

Kurti’s office denied that his idea has anything to do with Veseli’s, however, insisting it was based an obligation derived from the resolution adopted by the Kosovo Assembly.

“The genocide lawsuit against Serbia should have been filed in 2008 when Kosovo declared its independence. Since this has not been done, we are obliged to do it,” Kurti’s office told BIRN.

“The government of Kosovo has an obligation to its citizens, whose wounds remain open, to prepare a lawsuit for genocide,” it added.

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Kosovo’s top leaders write to UNESCO (media)

Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani said in a Twitter post over the weekend that “on 21st May, the Cultural Diversity Day, Kosovo’s three main institutions wrote to UNESCO to express our continued commitment to protect and promote our country’s rich cultural diversity. Kosovo has shown great leadership & ownership - this must be recognised”. Osmani attached the full letter in her post, which calls on UNESCO that four Orthodox monasteries in Kosovo be removed from the list of endangered heritage and for Kosovo to be listed as the responsible party for them instead of Serbia.

Kurti: We’re committed to protecting cultural heritage in our country (media)

Kosovo Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, said in a Twitter post on Sunday that Kosovo is committed to protecting its cultural heritage. “With Vjosa Osmani [Kosovo President] and Glauk Konjufca [Kosovo Assembly President], we requested UNESCO to withdraw the four heritage sites in Kosova from the List of World Heritage in Danger. The reasons for placing them on the danger list no longer apply. We are committed to protecting cultural heritage in our country,” Kurti tweeted.

Osmani: Serbia destabilising the region by joint exercise with Russia (media)

Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani said in a Twitter post on Sunday that Serbia was destabilising the region by organising a joint exercise with the Russian military. “While Kosovo and other countries in the region are participating in the joint military exercises with the US Army (#Defender21), Serbia is bolstering the Kremlin’s influence and destabilising the region by organizing a joint exercise with the Russian military. Take note,” Osmani tweeted.

Kosovo with footnote in regional agreement for free movement (Koha)

The daily reports on its front page today that six countries of the Western Balkans have finalised a draft agreement on free movement. The initiative was also approved by the Kosovo government last week. The paper claims to have secured a copy of the document and notes that it presents Kosovo as an equal party with the other signatories, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. The document refers to the residents of these countries as nationals. However, a footnote has been reportedly added to the Kosovo denomination saying that “this designation is without prejudice to the positions on the status and is in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1244 and the ICJ ruling on the Declaration of Kosovo’s Independence”.

Government keeps secret international experts for dialogue with Serbia (Koha)

The daily reported in its front page on Sunday that the Kosovo government is planning to expand the negotiating team with Serbia and that it will include international experts too. Some of these experts will reportedly be engaged by different embassies in Kosovo, including the embassies of Great Britain, Switzerland and Hungary. The government however is not disclosing details about the engagement of international experts. “Because of the sensitivity of the process, we cannot provide more details from what has already been made public,” a government spokesperson told the paper. Civil society representatives meanwhile said it was important to engage international experts from different fields in the process, but that the government should also be careful in their selection.

Protest against sexual violence against women and girls in Peja today (media)

All media report that a protest will be held in downtown Peja today against sexual violence against women and girls as well as against the institutional silence toward this phenomenon. The organisers of the protest said in a Facebook post that last week 18 women and girls reported to have experienced some form of sexual violence and harassment in Kosovo. “Let us protest and resist until justice is served for girls and women so that they can live without fear,” the organisers said.

Kosovo prosecution sues power plant’s Austrian manager for damages (BIRN)

The Basic Prosecution in Peja/ Pec on Friday said that it had filed a lawsuit against Kelkos Energy, the Austrian company operating hydropower plants in Decan/ Glogovac, in the district of Gjakova/ Djakovica, for damages caused by the plant pipeline. The prosecution said Kelkos Energy had caused “general danger”.

The prosecution said that on April 30, 2020, a segment of three kilometres of highway, ready to be asphalted, for the Decan-Plava highway connecting Kosovo to Montenegro, was badly damaged.

This was “a result of the water flow from the canal (pipeline) which serves for the circulation and collection of water and its delivery for the supply of the hydropower plants administered and managed by LLC Kelkos Energy – and as a result of the rapid flow of water, the whole soil collapsed”.

The prosecution says the collapse of the road caused “material damage to the road contractor, the injured party, LLC Lika Trade”.

Kelkos Energy has regularly been in the headlines due to civil society activists claiming that its three hydro-power plants in the Decan Valley are operating illegally.

Civil society groups and local residents say Kelkos Energy has violated Kosovo laws limiting how much of a river’s water can be diverted for hydropower.

They have been protesting against the company since 2019, when it was reported that the plants’ licenses had expired five years before.

The activists’ first win was in July 2020, when the river water flow was returned to one of the branches of the Lumbardhi river in Decan/ Glogovac, a few kilometres from a plant owned by KelKos Energy. The riverbed had been an empty pile of rocks for the five years of the plant’s operation.

Kosovo’s Energy Regulatory Office, ERO, banned the operations of the three KelKos-run plants in the Decan valley in October 2020. Former Economy and Environment minister Blerim Kuci told BIRN one month later that no environmental permit had been granted to them.

But an ERO board meeting concluded that KelKosin fact met all the legal criteria for a 40-year licence, after the Austrian company provided its environmental permit.

Kelkos Energy responded also by suing Loshaj for 100,000 euros in damages, which some legal experts and civil society considered a SLAPP.

BIRN reported on the case and the activists’ fights. One of the main activists, Shpresa Loshaj, of the NGO Pishtaret, was named as one of BIRN’s 2020 Balkan heroes.