Supporters of hardline Muslim group rally in Pristina demanding an end to killings of civilians in Gaza and attacking Israel’s ‘genocide’.

Nektar Zogjani
BIRN
Pristina

Around 100 Kosovars gathered on Friday in Pristina’s main Ibrahim Rugova square to protest against Israel’s iron-fisted military tactics against Hamas militants in Gaza.

Fuad Ramiqi, the organizer of the rally, said that the people of Kosovo “have a moral obligation” to condemn what is happening in Gaza “where children, women, and elderly people are being killed.

“An innocent population is being killed only because they belong to another nation and religion, against whom the criminal state of Israeli is conducting genocide and ethnic cleansing,” he said.

“Our nation has witnessed the same crimes and pain from our century-long enemy, and we know how you feel right now,” Ramiqi added, referring to Kosovo’s protracted and bloody independence struggle against Serbia.

Ramiqi is the leader of Lisba, the Islamic Movement for Unification, a hard-line Muslim organization that has transformed itself into a political party.

The mission of the group – according to posts on its Facebook page - includes building of a big mosque in Pristina, permission for women to wear the hijab in schools and public institutions and the inclusion of religion in the school curriculum.
Photo by BIRN

In his speech to the protesters, Ramiqi listed a number of demands, including that the Kosovo parliament pass a resolution “condemning Israeli aggression”. He said they also wanted the international community “to establish a international court to try the Israelis for genocide”.

The death toll in Gaza topped 1,400 this week after several weeks of fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian Hamas. There have been growing calls round the world for Israeli to calibrate its response more carefully to Hamas militants firing rockets into the country.