Text of report by Radio-Television Kosovo TV on 5 January
[Announcer] A group of Ferizaj [Urosevac] citizens have organized themselves and used force to close a dozen bars. They say that prostitutes were working in the bars and the owners were dealing in human trafficking.
[Reporter] Residents of a Ferizaj neighbourhood closed down ten bars, saying that prostitution was being conducted there. They had sent a petition to the Kosovo Police Service and municipal officials, but according to the residents nothing was undertaken. On 1 January the residents organized themselves and used force to close down all these bars.
[Resident of the neighbourhood, Vigan Hoxha] It is a straightforward matter, there was prostitution. In a lot of these bars women were working, and I as a resident of this neighbourhood together with all the other residents were forced to act. We simply evicted them.
[Reporter] The bars are owned by some of the residents living in the neighbourhood and as of January they will not receive their rent money from the shops, but according to them it is better not to get any money than for their neighbourhood to turn into a place where there is human trafficking.
[Another inhabitant of the neighbourhood] The young people of the neighbourhood got together and we reached a consensus to stop these things from happening in our neighbourhood regardless of the economic consequences. In time we believe that the good image of this neighbourhood will return.
[Reporter] Director of Municipal Inspectors Jahja Emini says that residents in the neighbourhood took the law into their own hands.
[Jahja Emini] If this has really happened, then in a sense the citizens have taken the law into their own hands, which is totally illegal. They should have notified us and we would then have passed on the information to the Kosovo Police Service. If we did not react, or do anything about this issue, they would have the right to request legal action through normal procedures.
[Reporter] The owners of these bars were citizens, of Kosovo, Albania, Bulgaria and other countries. The neighbourhood has been raided by police several times, but the bars would re-open as soon as the police left.
Ferizaj Municipality temporarily closed down five bars. This was not done because of the illegal activity of prostitution but because they did not fulfil hygiene standards.
Source: RTK TV, Pristina, in Albanian 1830 gmt 5 Jan 06
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3 comments:
Ivan,
I don't know where you got the idea that "Northern Region" is Serb majority - far from it. It has been ethnically cleansed and Albnaians and others are still not allowed to cross the bridge to go back to their homes.
If it comes down to partitioning, then Albanian will come out victorious. We'll be able to unite our lands in the Balkans finally in one country, not in five as it is now. And that with Serbs doing most of the work for us.
Albanians have to sit and wait this one out as Serbs piss off the West once again with their whining and arrogance and then make the moves.
Kristian,
You're talking about an ideal world. Kosova is not one. In fact the ideal world does not exist.
I understand your fears (Serbs on the other hand just seek ways to prove whatever their politics is), but looking back in history that is not what your fears should come from.
People went to the police and they didn't respond. It seems like the police (both local and international) always take months and an "operation" to find out that prostitution is going on right after the last kid in the hood has figured that out. I personally doubt they are being honest since according to their own statistics internationals (mainly security forces now) make up some 25% of the customers. Remeber that episode when the prositutes left three French soldiers without clothes in n. Mitrovica?
Once again, the Balkans is messed up because good people choose to look away at crime done right under their noses and in their name, not because they are vigilante.
In Bosnia this is most clearer. UN officials that had witnessed the events there told me that fighting and hatred didn't start until gangsters from Serbia would roll in and start killing and burning randomly with the sole purpose of setting Serbs against Muslims and Croats against each other. When they had the dominoes rolling ("see, we told you Bosniaks are evil? you didn't want to trust us."), they moved on to their next multiethnic target. All targets fell under this spell except Tuzla. Tuzla is a fascinating story of Tuzlan Bosniaks and Serbs coming together to kick out the gangs and the "People's Army."
People of Ferizaj didn't use violence and achieved to clean up their street, so I can only applaud them for that. If the owners have a case, let them sue for damages.
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