• COVID-19: 771 new cases, no deaths (media)
• Kosovo sends back Serbian ballots ahead of referendum (Deutsche Welle)
• Lawmakers reject holding Serb referendum in Kosovo (The Washington Post)
• President’s Chief of Staff: Kosovo kept a principled position (media)
• Assembly adopts resolution against Serbian referendum in Kosovo (Express)
• Kosovo Serbs travel to neighboring Serbia to vote in referendum (euronews.al)
• Kosovo bans Serbian vote on constitutional changes on its soil (Al Jazeera)
• Kosovo commemorates massacre where 45 were killed by Serbian troops (Exit)
• Spahiu: Talk of Albanian unification Damages Kosovo (BIRN)
• Panic as Kosovo pulls plug on its energy-guzzling bitcoin miners (The Guardian)
• Podcast: War’s consequences on cultural heritage (Kosovo 2.0)
• Serbia votes ‘Yes’ judiciary constitution changes (BIRN)

COVID-19: 771 new cases, no deaths (media)

771 new cases with COVID-19 were recorded in Kosovo in the last 24 hours. 119 citizens have recovered from the virus during this time. There are 4,489 active cases with COVID-19 in Kosovo.

Koha Ditore reports this morning that with the increase in new cases, there is growing interest among the citizens to get the booster shot against the virus. The paper also notes that Health Minister Rifat Latifi has said that if the spike continues, there will be more restrictive measures against the spread of the virus.

Kosovo sends back Serbian ballots ahead of referendum (Deutsche Welle)

Authorities have prevented polling stations for a Serbian referendum from being set up in Kosovo. Lawmakers passed a resolution to keep ethnic Serbs from voting on the Serbian reform while on Kosovar soil.

Police in Kosovo stopped Serbian ballots from entering the country in the run-up to a referendum that allows for the participation of Kosovo's ethnic Serb minority, police said on Saturday.

A Serbian election official and two trucks carrying the ballot papers were briefly held at the Merdare border crossing on Friday. Police said they confiscated the trucks and sent six people back to Serbia.

The about 100,000 ethnic Serbs who live in Kosovo are entitled to vote in the Serbian referendum, but Kosovo's government insists that they vote as citizens in a foreign territory would, rather than at formal polling stations.

In an extraordinary session on Saturday, 76 of 120 deputies voted in favor of a declaration banning Serbia from opening polling spots in Kosovo.

Read more at: https://bit.ly/3rpYjic

Kosovo lawmakers reject holding Serb referendum in Kosovo (The Washington Post)

Lawmakers in Kosovo held an extraordinary session Saturday to pass a resolution saying that opening polling stations for Kosovo’s ethnic Serb minority to vote in a Serb referendum would violate the country’s constitution, laws and international practice.

The resolution in the parliament, which passed unanimously by the 76 lawmakers present, asked the government “to undertake all the actions ... not to allow the violation of the Republic of Kosovo’s sovereignty and constitutional order from holding of a referendum of a foreign country in the Republic of Kosovo’s territory.” The ethnic Serb minority’s Serb Lists party had left the assembly hall before Saturday’s vote.

Serbia is holding a referendum on Sunday on amendments to boost the independence of its judiciary as part of reforms needed for the country to move closer to its goal of membership in the 27-nation European Union. Belgrade wants its ethnic Serb minority in Kosovo to participate.

Read more at: https://wapo.st/3nxuivE

President’s Chief of Staff: Kosovo kept a principled position (media)

Blerim Vela, Chief of Staff for Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani, took to Twitter on Sunday to note that “despite the threats emanating from Serbia, it was a peaceful day in Kosovo. Serbia's illegal structures didn't manage to hold the referendum. Kosovo kept a principled position that maintains regional peace and stability while upholding its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Assembly adopts resolution against Serbian referendum in Kosovo (Express)

Kosovo Assembly convened Saturday in an extraordinary session and adopted a resolution against the organizing of the Serbian referendum in Kosovo’s territory. The resolution was approved with 77 votes in favour out of 78 MPs who attended today’s urgent session. One MP abstained. Serb MPs of the Srpska List boycotted the voting.

Serbia is set to hold a referendum on constitutional changes on Sunday (16 January) and asked international community to Kosovo Serb minority cast their ballot. Ambassadors of QUINT (US, UK, Germany, France, and Italy) and EU representatives issued a joint statement Friday urging the Government to allow Kosovo Serbs exercise their right of vote referring to a practice established in Serbian elections held until now, but the Government of Kosovo rejected the call of QUINT and EU. Kosovo state leaders, the President Vjosa Osmani, Prime Minister Albin Kurti, and Speaker of the Assembly, Glauk Konjufca, issued a joint statement after meeting Ambassadors of QUINT stating that Serbs can cast ballots by mail or at Belgrade’s Liaison Office in Pristina and that they will not allow setting up voting centres in Serb-majority municipalities in Kosovo territory. Prime Minister Kurti asked the Assembly hold an urgent meeting today (Saturday) to decide on this issue. The text of the resolution reiterated that organising of Serbia’s referendum in Kosovo violates Constitutional order and applicable laws of the Republic of Kosovo, and is in violation with international practices. The Resolution states that Serbs with dual citizenship are free to vote by mail and at the Serbia’s Liaison Office. The Assembly asked the Government and other relevant institutions of Kosovo to take actions and now allow violation of country’s constitutional order, namely allowing organising of a referendum of another country in the territory of the Republic of Kosovo.

MPs in their resolution expressed their concern with Serbia’s continuous actions to instrumentalize and misuse Kosovo Serbs in favour of hostile policies of Serbia towards Kosovo. The Assembly also urged international community to support the legitimate rights and treat Kosovo equally as other countries of the region.

Kosovo Police stopped late Friday two trucks transporting documentations for Serbia’s referendum in Kosovo and held a Serbian Elections Committee at the border. The Police said on Saturday that they have released Serbian official and truck drivers and returned them to Serbia.

Serbs in Kosovo travel to neighboring Serbia to vote in referendum (Euronews.al)

Hundreds of ethnic Serbs living in Kosovo are crossing the border to Serbia today, in order to participate in a national referendum that is expected to make several changes to the Serbian Constitution.

Kosovo’s Special Forces have been spotted at the Jarinja border crossing, and are mobilized to intervene if necessary.

The ethnic Serbian minority will be voting in 4 communes in southern Serbia – a decision that was made this Sunday, by the Electoral Commission in Belgrade.

The Commission chair, Vladimir Dimitrijevic, said that Serbs in Kosovo will be able to cast their ballot in Novi Pazar, Rashke e Vranje – communes in southern Serbia that are located close to the countries border with Kosovo.

In the early morning hours, a protest staged by ethnic Serbs, took place in North Mitrovica, led by the head of the Serbian List and minister in the Kurti administration, Goran Rakic.

He announced that mayors of 10 communes with a Serbian majority in Kosovo are coming out to make a joint public statement.

Rakic added that if Kosovo’s government doesn’t allow for the Serbian elections to take place on April 3, they will have to impose the reciprocity principle in northern Kosovo.

According to him, this will be initially applied to North Mitrovica, Zubin Potok, Leposavic and Zvecan, but gradually moved on to the other Serb-majority communes as well.

Kosovo’s government has banned the organization of a Serbian referendum in its territory. During the extraordinary plenum, Kosovo’s Parliament voted against holding such a referendum on its soil.

Even though Serbia has made several calls to allow Serbs living in Kosovo to participate in their national referendum, authorities in Prishtina have argued that they can’t recognize the right of another nation to hold a referendum in the territory of another sovereign state.

Kosovo bans Serbian vote on constitutional changes on its soil (Al Jazeera)

Serbia will hold a referendum on Sunday on amendments to the constitution that would change how judges and prosecutors are elected.

Kosovo’s Parliament has passed a resolution banning ethnic Serbs from voting on Kosovan soil in Serbia’s national referendum on constitutional amendments.

Serbia will hold a referendum on Sunday on amendments to the constitution that would change how judges and prosecutors are elected, a move the government says is aimed at securing an independent judiciary, a condition for European Union membership.

Kosovo’s independence backers – the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and the EU mission – urged Prime Minister Albin Kurti to allow Serbs in Kosovo to vote in the referendum.

But in an extraordinary session on Saturday, 76 out of 120 deputies voted in favour of a declaration banning Serbia from opening polling centres in Kosovo.

Read more at: https://bit.ly/3I8VtVt

Kosovo commemorates massacre where 45 were killed by Serbian troops (Exit)

Kosovo leaders commemorated the 23rd anniversary of the Recak Massacre where the Serbian police and military forces murdered 45 people in the village of Recak, Kosovo.

On January 15, 1999, during the Kosovo War, 45 people were murdered in the massacre when Serbian forces surrounded the village of Reçak, attacked it, and raided houses. Men were dragged from their homes, beaten and then shot, women were sexually assaulted and raped. Serbia initially stated that those killed were Kosovo Liberation Army militants but this was not the case.

The Recak massacre was witnessed by the head of the OSCE mission in Kosovo, William Walker. He was the first international official to state there were “crimes against humanity” happening in Kosovo while visiting the crime scene in the village.

Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani took to Twitter to say: “Today marks 23 years since the Recak Massacre where 45 innocent Albanians were brutally murdered at the hands of a genocidal regime. Serbia not only refuses to apologise, but denies these crimes. We will never stop seeking justice for the men, women & children we lost.”

Spahiu: Talk of Albanian unification damages Kosovo (BIRN)

Kosovo political scientist Nexhmedin Spahiu tells BIRN that Kosovo needs to discover a sense of its own identity and stop publicly mulling joining Albania.

The room was full on a mid-November day at the Institute of Albanology in Pristina when political scientist Nexhmedin Spahiu was promoting his latest study, “Kosovo and Albania in the future: closer or farther apart?”

Spahiu is known as an advocate of Kosovo cultivating its own identity, and his position about this has often provoked debate.

“Kosovo has its own identity, but there is a problem at the academic level about the use of proper terms,” Spahiu told BIRN in an interview a month after his study was published.

“We lack studies. I think I had the luck or bad luck to be the first to deal with this theory of the nation, and this has caused problems that any pioneer has in a specific field, even though I am not the first,” he said.

“There have been many before me, but there was a break [during communism] and I only started to tackle this issue after that 50-year break,” he added.

Read more here: https://bit.ly/3rnu2An

Panic as Kosovo pulls plug on its energy-guzzling bitcoin miners (The Guardian)

Speculators rush to sell off their kit as Balkan state announces a crypto clampdown to ease electricity crisis

For bitcoin enthusiasts in Kosovo with a breezy attitude to risk, it has been a good week to strike a deal on computer equipment that can create, or “mine”, the cryptocurrency.

From Facebook to Telegram, new posts in the region’s online crypto groups became dominated by dismayed Kosovans attempting to sell off their mining equipment – often at knockdown prices.

“There’s a lot of panic and they’re selling it or trying to move it to neighbouring countries,” said cryptoKapo, a crypto investor and administrator of some of the region’s largest online crypto communities.

The frenetic social media action follows an end-of-year announcement by Kosovo’s government of an immediate, albeit temporary, ban on all crypto mining activity as part of emergency measures to ease a crippling energy crisis.

Read more at: https://bit.ly/3fy84Fv

Podcast: War’s consequences on cultural heritage (Kosovo 2.0)

Nora Weller talks about dark heritage, memorialization and the Decani Monastery.

Cultural rights and the consequences of war on cultural heritage often do not receive the needed attention within the public debate on transitional justice and reconciliation. K2.0 has explored for two years various aspects of transitional justice in order to cover as many nuances of the issue as possible.

We talk to Nora Weller in this edition of our podcast to learn about some important ideas regarding the cultural heritage that came out of the war, as well as its memorialization, and one of the most polarizing issues in the country: the Dečani Monastery.

Weller is a lawyer and researcher for the protection of cultural heritage in war zones and post-war societies at the University of Cambridge. There she completed her studies, from Bachelor to Doctorate, in law and archeology. She is also a lecturer in conflict archeology at her alma mater, having lectured this year on the case of the war in Kosovo for the first time. Nora also teaches at the military and diplomatic academy in Rome, and is often invited as a guest lecturer from various universities around the world, including the University of Prishtina.

Read more here: https://kosovotwopointzero.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Podcast-Wars-consequences-on-cultural-heritage.pdf

Serbia votes ‘Yes’ judiciary constitution changes (BIRN)

Against the urgings of many opposition parties, most Serbian voters on Sunday backed proposed changes to the constitution – announced as way to de-politicize of judiciary, which the EU has said it wishes to see.

Serbian citizens voted to change the country’s constitution and accept a judicial reform package, with 60.48 per cent voters saying “Yes” to the proposals in Sunday’s referendum, first results on Sunday night said.

Around 39.52 per cent of voters chose the “No” option. Referendums on constitutional changes do not have any required threshold in Serbia. According to the latest official information, around 30 per cent of voters went to the polls.

Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic, who announced the results, said that some 400,000 people more, voted for the “Yes” option, compared to those who voted “No”.

“I congratulate the citizens of Serbia, they voted for the constitutional changes, I congratulate everyone who voted, both in favour and against”, Vucic told media.

Earlier on Sunday, Rasa Nedeljkov, form the Belgrade-based NGO CRTA, a group that observed the voting, said that their general conclusion is the voting broads were “rather unprepared” for the election process, which he said could lead to “various potential problems”.

He added that CRTA had to withdraw observers from one polling station because they were threatened by “unauthorized persons”.

Serbian population in Kosovo, Serbia’s former province whose independence Serbia does not recognise, was not allowed to vote on polling stations across the entire country, like in previous elections, but was only allowed to do so in Pristina. Serbia’s State Electoral Commission said on Saturday evening that Serbs from Kosovo will be allowed to vote in four towns in other parts of Serbia.

Some of the most important changes in the referendum are about the way judges and prosecutors will be elected in future. Parliament will now elect only the Supreme State Prosecutor and five out of 15 Constitutional Court judges. All other judges and prosecutors will be elected by two judicial councils.

Four members of each council will be so called “prominent lawyers”, chosen by parliament. Unlike now, the justice minister will be a member only of the prosecutorial council, while representatives of parliament will not be members of either council any more.

Experts said the changes were a needed step – but were not enough to guarantee that the Serbian judiciary will be independent of political influence.

Most opposition parties and some professionals urged a “No” vote in the referendum, saying that there was not enough legitimacy when parliament – with barely any opposition parties present – adopted the amendments. They insist there is still a real possibility of political influence on the judiciary.

Serbia’s 2006 constitution was adopted at a time of high tension over the future of Kosovo, a former Serbian province that was then a ward of the United Nations, but pushing for independence.

The constitution affirmed Serbia’s claim to Kosovo as an integral and inviolable part of its territory, despite which Kosovo declared independence in 2008 and has since been recognised by mosty EU states.