This memorandum identifies seven of the most pressing human rights concerns in Kosovo today. To help identify the key concerns, Human Rights Watch consulted human rights groups across Kosovo’s different ethnic communities
Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s defense is scheduled to begin at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on August 31. This series of questions and answers provides background information, explains key concepts, evaluates the progression of the trial thus far, and describes what is yet to come.
This 66-page report documents the widespread attacks against Serbs, Roma, Ashkali (Albanian-speaking Roma) and other minorities that took place in Kosovo on March 17-18. Human Rights Watch details the near-complete collapse during the crisis of Kosovo’s security institutions—the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR), international civilian police from the U.N.
The November 24-25 summit in Zagreb, with the participation of fifteen European Union (E.U.) states and Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia, provides a unique opportunity for the E.U.
On May 26, 1996, Albanians voted in parliamentary elections—the third multi-party elections since the fall of the communist government in 1991. Unfortunately, numerous human rights violations before, during and after the vote undermined the democratic process and threatened the legitimacy of the elections.
For decades Albania was eastern Europe's most closed and repressive state. During his 40-year reign, former communist leader Enver Hoxha banned religion, forbade travel and outlawed private property. Any resistance to his rule was met with brutal retribution, including internal exile, long-term imprisonment or execution.
There has been a marked deterioration in relations between Albania and Greece since 1993. At the center of the dispute is the treatment of the Greek minority living in Albania and this report documents their situation.
In advance of Albania’s first contested elections under Communist rule on March 31, we took part in a fact-finding mission from March 7 to March 12 as part of the first team of independent human rights investigators to have officially visited the country.
