Bujar Dugolli, dean of Philological Faculty of University of Pristina, said they consider the decision of the Appeals Court to uphold a previous ruling giving the Orthodox Church ownership over a plot of land within the university campus to be “shameful” and “unjust”. Dugolli said the UP’s opposition to the court ruling is not an attempt at interfering in the work of the judiciary or at undermining the right to religion to any community in Kosovo.

A group of University of Pristina students gathered today in the university campus, namely in front of the unfinished Orthodox Church building, and tried to put of pictures of massacres Serb forces committed against the Albanian population. However, the Kosovo Police reacted by preventing the students from putting up the pictures. Students said their action was initiated following provocations from Serbia and as a sign of protest against the priests who held a mass at this church seen as a relic of Slobodan Milosevic’s regime in Kosovo.

The EU Office in Kosovo has issued a press statement expressing concern with recent developments at the University of Pristina (UP) regarding the dismissal of Rector Ramadan Zejnullahu. “We express full support for the attempts of the Rector of the University of Pristina to protect the quality of higher education and introduce principles of good governance by putting clear academic criteria in place, in order for the students to acquire the knowledge and the skills they need to be competitive at the labour market and to find high skill jobs,” the statement reads.