December 1998 Vol. 10, No. 10 (D)
FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA
DETENTIONS AND ABUSE IN KOSOVO
AAny violence against a person deprived of liberty or whose liberty has been restricted, as well as any extortion of a confession or statement, shall be forbidden and punishable. No one may be subjected to torture, degrading treatment or punishment.@ Constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Article 25.
SUMMARY ...... 3
RECOMMENDATIONS...... 5
BACKGROUND...... 7
DEATHS IN DETENTION...... 8 Rexhep Bislimi ...... 8 Cen Dugolli ...... 9 Adem Berisha ...... 10 Maksut Qafleshi...... 11 Bilall Shala ...... 11
ARRESTS AND ABUSE IN DETENTION ...... 11 A Bus From Slovenia...... 14 Fatime Boshnjaku ...... 14 Zahride Podrimçaku...... 15 Besa Arllati...... 16 Mevlude Sarraqi ...... 17 A.D...... 17 Xhavet Haziri...... 18 Dr. Hafir Shala...... 18 Nait Hasani ...... 18
UNFAIR TRIALS AND ABUSE...... 19 The Students From Prizren ...... 19 Ahmet Gjonovci ...... 20 Destan Rukiqi ...... 21
UNOFFICIAL PLACES OF DETENTION ...... 22
DETENTIONS AND ABUSE BY THE KLA ...... 23
LEGAL STANDARDS ...... 25 Domestic Law...... 25 International Law...... 26
APPENDIX A ...... 28 List of Prisons...... 28
APPENDIX B...... 28 Penal Code of the Republic of Serbia...... 28
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... 29
SUMMARY
Since the armed conflict in Kosovo began in late February 1998, at least 1,200 ethnic Albanians have been charged under Serbian law with Aterrorism@ or Aanti-state activities.@ The exact figure is unknown, because the Serbian government refuses to provide updated information.
The physical abuse and torture of detainees is widespread. Five individuals are known to have died from violence inflicted on them by police in police stations or prisons since July 1998, and this number does not include more than fifty people who, since February 1998, according to Human Rights Watch estimates, were executed by the special police forces after they were taken into custody.1 Hundreds of other detainees have been subjected to beatings to extract a confession or to obtain information about the ethnic Albanian insurgency known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).2
According to the Serbian government, as of October 3, 1998, 1,242 ethnic Albanians had been charged with Aterrorist acts@ based on Article 125 or 136 of the Serbian penal code (see Appendix B), although only 684 of these people were reported to be in custody. But many arrests took place throughout October and November, and human rights and humanitarian aid groups in Kosovo suspect that the number of people now in custody is higher, probably around 1,500.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been denied full access to ethnic Albanians in state custody, especially those in pre-trial detention, although it has been allowed to visit approximately 160 people in prison after they have been sentenced. Lawyers and family members also report difficulties in visiting their clients and relatives in detention.
The common practice throughout the summer, documented on numerous occasions by Human Rights Watch, was for the police to round up ethnic Albanians in their villages or in the woods where they were hiding from government attacks. The police detained the men for two or three days for interrogation and paraffin tests -- an antiquated and unreliable chemical test to check for traces of gunpowder. Most of those detained were beaten during this time by the police and interrogated about the KLA. Those who tested positive for gun powder, or who the police believed had engaged in hostilities against the state, were arrested. On one occasion, in the village of Golubovac on September 26, the police lined up and executed thirteen men.3
Detained individuals include human rights activists, students, doctors, humanitarian aid workers, political party members, and lawyers, many of whom were physically abused. Although some of these people may have cooperated with or participated in the Albanian insurgency known in KLA activities, the accusation of Aterrorism@ has cast a wide legal net around many ethnic Albanians who do not have contact with the Albanian insurgents. Simply being an ethnic Albanian is often enough to merit an arrest and beating.
Because prisons in Kosovo are full to capacity, many prisoners have been transferred to facilities in other parts of Serbia, including military prisons. At times, unconventional detention centers were temporarily used, such as schools, fire stations, and factories. There are unconfirmed reports that the ferrous-nickel plant near Glogovac was used as a detention facility.
1See AHumanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo,@ Human Rights Watch, October 1998.
2Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës (UÇK) in Albanian.
3See AHumanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo,@ Human Rights Watch, October 1998, appendices A and C. A detailed Human Rights Watch report on Golubovac is forthcoming. Human Rights Watch 4 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) Eight judges were transferred to Kosovo to deal with the heavy caseload. Trials took place in September, October, and November, and are expected to continue throughout the winter. As in the past, defendants are rarely given a fair trial. In addition to the use of torture to extract confessions, defendants are often denied access to a lawyer, not allowed to view court documentation, or refused permission to present witnesses on their behalf. The government exerts a direct influence on the outcome of most trials.
Such violations are in clear contradiction to Serbian and Yugoslav law, which forbids the use of violence against detainees and guarantees due process. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has also ratified all of the international conventions forbidding torture and degrading treatment or punishment. Despite this, abuses in the legal system are treated with impunity. Human Rights Watch is not aware of any prosecution of, dismissals, or disciplinary action taken against policemen, prison guards, investigators, prosecutors, or judges for excessive use of force or violations of criminal procedure since the armed conflict began in February 1998. Judges regularly dismiss defendants= complaints that they were abused in detention or forced to confess under duress.
Human Rights Watch is deeply concerned that these abuses will continue, notwithstanding the recent U.S. brokered cease-fire and nascent peace process. On October 14, the Serbian government announced that it had agreed to an amnesty for ethnic Albanians accused of political crimes and to consider moderation of punishment for those convicted of such crimes. But as of December 1, there was no further information about this amnesty, or how it might be administered. Moreover, although repeated Security Council resolutions have insisted on full and unimpeded access for the ICRC, and Yugoslav President Slobodan MilołeviÉ has agreed to allow monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to verify his compliance with those resolutions, the ICRC continues to experience difficulties in obtaining access to detention facilities. Reports of arbitrary arrests and detention have continued since the fragile peace was negotiated in mid-October. Human Rights Watch fears that while the conflict may have subsided for the winter months, serious abuses and miscarriages of justice will continue in Yugoslavia=s police stations, detention centers, and courtrooms.
The KLA has also committed illegal detentions since February 1998, and has sometimes extrajudicially executed those held in its custody. The precise number of those in detention is unknown since the KLA does not provide updated information and no independent monitoring organization has been given access to KLA detention centers. Human rights groups, humanitarian organizations, political parties, and the Yugoslav government estimate that between 100 and 300 people, ethnic Serbs and Albanians, are believed to have been taken into custody by the KLA and are unaccounted for, but it is unknown whether these people are in hiding, have been killed, or are still in KLA custody. By the KLA=s own admission, some people in its custody have been executed.
A number of KLA detainees have also been released. On July 22, the KLA handed over to the ICRC thirty- five ethnic Serbs it had captured during the fighting in Orahovac. In a recent case that generated a lot of public attention, two journalists from the official Tanjug news agency were released on November 27, after spending more than one month in KLA custody; their trial by a KLA military court did not meet international standards of due process. Two other Serbian journalists believed abducted by the KLA are still missing.
RECOMMENDATIONS
To the Yugoslav government:
Human Rights Watch 5 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) C Make publicly available regularly updated figures on the number of individuals charged and arrested for Aterrorism@ or Aanti-state activities,@ with information on the nature of their alleged crimes and the places of their detention.
C Provide unrestricted access to detainees by the ICRC, the OSCE verification mission, and representatives of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.
C Immediately grant the request of the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions to conduct an investigation in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
C Investigate allegations of police abuse and improper treatment of those in detention. The government should prosecute to the fullest extent of the law all officials found to have used or tolerated the use of excessive force.
$ Enact legislation and follow published guidelines that strictly control the use of force by police or by the military in Kosovo, along the following lines: lethal force should only be used when it is Astrictly necessary@ to prevent crime or effect a lawful arrest, and it should be used in proportion to the circumstances. Civilians aggrieved under such guidelines should be allowed legal redress.
$ Respect Article 31 of the Yugoslav constitution, which requires officials to have a previously issued court warrant and two witnesses when entering a private residence or business to search for evidence.
$ Accord due process to all persons detained and/or accused of crimes, including ethnic Albanians accused of "violating the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia" or "terrorist" activities.
$ Inform all detainees immediately of the grounds for arrest and any charges against them.
$ Provide all detainees with immediate and regular access to attorneys; accord all detainees the right to petition for review of their detention without undue delay;
$ Allow all detainees time and facilities for the preparation of a defense and the ability to communicate with counsel.
$ Drop all charges against and release from detention those who have been indicted for the peaceful expression of opinion or for membership in a group that has only performed acts which, under international human rights law, may not be criminalized, such as peaceful criticism of the government; and refrain from making arrests on such grounds.
$ Drop all pending and refrain from bringing future charges based solely on "confessions" extracted by torture.
C Enforce the inadmissibility of statements extracted by force in all legal proceedings, other than those brought for redress of the abuse.
C Allow unfettered access for those who allege abuse in detention to adequate medical treatment and to forensic medical experts to document the abuse.
To the Kosovo Liberation Army: Because the fighting in Kosovo is an internal armed conflict covered by international humanitarian law, both government forces and the KLA are obliged to respect, at a minimum, the provisions of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which require that civilians and other protected persons be treated humanely, with specific prohibitions on murder, torture, or cruel, humiliating or degrading treatment. Human Rights Watch, therefore, calls on the KLA to:
Human Rights Watch 6 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D)
$ respect its obligations under international law. In particular, the KLA should release all civilians in detention, refrain from attacks on members of the civilian population and from using any detainees or civilians as hostages, and treat humanely Serbian soldiers or policemen in custody;
$ condemn hostage-taking and the ill-treatment of civilians or others placed hors de combat and renounce such tactics;
$ impose a code of military conduct that punishes KLA hostage-taking, using humans as shields, and other conduct prohibited by international humanitarian law; take steps to inform troops of binding rules that violators among KLA troops will be held accountable;
$ bring to justice commanders and troops guilty of these violations in conformity with international standards of due process;
$ grant humanitarian organizations full and ongoing access to the conflict zone under KLA control and to people in KLA detention.
To the United Nations: C The Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions should include in her investigation in FRY consideration of the evidence of deaths in detention contained in this report, report publicly on her findings, and develop recommendations to the government to curb these abuses.
C The Special Rapporteur on the former Yugoslavia should make a priority of regularly monitoring conditions of detention and due process in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, report publicly on his findings, and develop specific recommendations for reform.
C The recently expanded mission in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia of the High Commissioner for Human Rights should, in cooperation with the Special Rapporteurs, the OSCE verification mission, and the ICRC, make a priority of monitoring trials and conditions of detention, publicizing its findings, and developing concrete recommendations for reform.
To the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission: C In cooperation with the ICRC, monitor the treatment of those in detention through regular visits to prisons and police stations and suspected places of detention, including those located outside of Kosovo but holding persons detained in connection with the conflict. As part of these monitoring activities, the OSCE mission should: -Interview detainees, freely and in private, including those who have not yet been charged with a crime. -Raise objections with the authorities over abuses, including when access to detention facilities is denied or conditions deviate from international standards. -Recommend corrective action, including dismissal or prosecution. -Publicize conditions that fall below international standards when the authorities fail to take appropriate corrective action , including the prosecution of responsible officials.
C Regularly observe trials, especially those of ethnic Albanians accused of Aterrorism@ or other crimes related to state security. -Raise objections with the authorities when access to trials is denied and when procedural irregularities are identified.
Human Rights Watch 7 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) -Recommend remedial measures to correct procedural violations, and publicize procedural violations, particularly when the authorities fail to take remedial action.
To the United States, E.U. member states, and other governments: C Regularly request permission for diplomats visiting the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to visit detention facilities and detainees listed in Appendix A of this report.
C Designate Belgrade embassy staff to monitor trials regularly, especially those of ethnic Albanians accused of Aterrorism@ or other crimes related to state security.
BACKGROUND
Hundreds of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo have been imprisoned on political grounds since the revocation of the region=s autonomy in 1990. Most often these people were accused of threatening the integrity of the state by forming parallel institutions, such as the Albanian Ministry of Defense or a Apara-police force.@4 Toward the end of 1996 and throughout 1997, more than one hundred ethnic Albanians were arrested and charged with acts of terrorism in connection with the then-nascent KLA, which had taken credit for a series of attacks on Serbian policemen and Albanian Acollaborators.@5
Violations of Serbian, Yugoslav, and international law were the norm in these cases from the moment of arrest. Detainees were regularly not informed of the reasons for their arrest, denied access to a lawyer, and held in detention without a formal arrest order from the investigating judge longer than the three days allowed by law.6 Indisputable evidence pointed to wide-scale abuse and torture committed by the police during the investigation period to extract confessions. Attempts by lawyers to introduce evidence, witnesses, or proof of torture in detention were, with rare exceptions, dismissed out of hand.
Many of these abuses were, and still are, related to the generally weak nature of Serbia=s legal system. Since coming to power, Slobodan MilołeviÉ has undermined the rule of law and breached the separation of powers, making the courts the judicial organs of the ruling Socialist Party. While violations of due process are endemic throughout Yugoslavia, there is no question that the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo are especially prone to abuse.
The number of arrests, and the seriousness of abuse in detention, increased as the KLA gained strength throughout 1998. After armed conflict began in late February, the government used the legal system as a way to strike back, not only at the KLA, but at ethnic Albanians as a group. While many of those under arrest did, without doubt, engage in hostilities against the state, there are also many cases where individuals were arrested simply because they were suspected of sympathizing with the KLA. A number of people were arrested because they were in areas where the KLA happened to be present. As some of the cases in this report document, the prosecutor=s office used an extremely broad interpretation of Aterrorism@ and Aterrorist acts@ to encompass individuals who had apparently no connection with the armed Albanian insurgency.
DEATHS IN DETENTION
4The most common accusations throughout the early 1990s was Aendangering Yugoslavia=s territorial integrity,@ according to Article 116 of the Yugoslav Penal Code, or Atreason,@ according to Article 116.
5See Human Rights Watch report, Persecution Persists: Human Rights Violations in Kosovo, December 1996, and press release, AHuman Rights Watch/Helsinki Condemns Political Trial in Kosovo,@ July 15, 1997.
6 Yugoslav Law of Penal Procedure, Article 196, Paragraph 3. Human Rights Watch 8Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) Human rights groups in Kosovo have documented five cases since July 1998 in which detainees -- people held in police stations, state security buildings, or prisons -- died from torture by police officers or prison guards. Human Rights Watch confirmed three of these cases by speaking with lawyers, family members of the victims, and witnesses, as well as by seeing death certificates and/or photographs of the deceased. (For photographic evidence see the Human Rights Watch website: www.hrw.org/reports98/kosovo2/.) All three of these cases involved young, healthy men who were seen being taken away by the police, and then were returned to their families dead.
Rexhep Bislimi Rexhep Bislimi, an activist with the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms in Urołevac and the father of three, was arrested on July 6, 1998, from the street in Urołevac. He died on July 20 from beatings he sustained while in detention. Human Rights Watch saw photographs of Bislimi after his death which reveal severe bruises and subcutaneous bleeding consistent with the allegations of torture (see the Human Rights Watch website: www.hrw.org/reports98/kosovo2/).
According to Bislimi=s family, Rexhep was traveling by car with his nephew and two uncles toward Gnjilane to visit family. The police stopped the car in Urołevac, checked his family=s documents, and immediately arrested Rexhep. The family went to the police station twice that day, but were given no information on Rexhep=s whereabouts.
On July 7, the police brought Rexhep back to his house while most of the family was at home. Rexhep=s sister, Tyrkene, told Human Rights Watch:
I went out and saw eight cars with policemen and inspectors. When I saw him [Rexhep], he was black and blue and bloody under his eye. I said to the policemen, Awhat have you done?@ They put all of us [fifteen people] in the kitchen and locked the door.7
Rexhep=s cousin, Fadil, watched as the police forced Rexhep to dig holes in his garden, ostensibly looking for weapons. They found nothing and began searching the house, again revealing nothing. Around 1:45 p.m. the police left with Rexhep, according to the family. That was the last time they saw Rexhep alive.
According to Fadil, the police did not provide any precise information about Rexhep over the next two days, saying only that he was either in Priłtina, Lipljan, or Urołevac prison. A lawyer hired by the family, Besel Jashari, was not allowed access to his client.
Three or four days later, the family learned that Rexhep was being held in Gnjilane prison. The chief investigative judge in Priłtina, Danica MarinkoviÉ, gave Rexhep=s mother and Fadil permission to visit. According to Fadil, the two of them tried to visit on July 16, but the police did not allow them to enter the prison because Rexhep was Ain interrogation.@ The police kept the visiting permit and said the family could return in three or four days.
Two days later, the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms in Priłtina informed the family that Rexhep was in the Priłtina hospital. According to Fadil, he and Rexhep=s mother went to visit the hospital on July 19, but they were refused entry by two policemen who were guarding the door. A doctor told the family that it was Abetter this way,@ since they did not want to see Rexhep in that condition. The doctor recommended that the family purchase 1,000DM worth of medicine to treat Rexhep=s internal bleeding, which the family did. Six members of the family also donated their blood. On July 20, Fadil and Rexhep=s brother went back to the hospital in Priłtina. A doctor there told them that Rexhep had died.
7 Human Rights Watch interview with Tyrkene Bislimi, Urołevac, September 25, 1998. Human Rights Watch 9 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) The official discharge summary and death certificate, obtained by Human Rights Watch, said that Rexhep had died on July 21; the family did not know why there was a discrepancy in the dates but suggested that the doctors at the hospital may have waited until they received the 1,000 DM worth of medicine from the family. The official cause of death on the discharge summary was Aconstusio capitis et corporis@ (contusions of the head and body). Bislimi=s injuries were listed as: three broken ribs on the left side, a punctured left lung, ruptured diaphragm, and intestinal bleeding.8
Human Rights Watch also saw a photograph of Mr. Bislimi taken by the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms on July 23. The photograph showed severe bruising and lacerations all over Rexhep=s back that were consistent with the allegations of torture.
The family decided not to press charges, believing that a legal process would prove futile. As of December 1, no one had been held responsible for Rexhep=s death.
Cen Dugolli Cen Dugolli, an activist with the Democratic League of Kosovo in Urołevac and the father of four, died on August 17, 1998, in Priłtina hospital from beatings sustained while in detention. Photographs of Dugolli obtained by Human Rights Watch reveal signs of extreme beating and deep subcutaneous bleeding over large parts of the body (see the Human Rights Watch website: www.hrw.org/reports98/kosovo2/).
According to Dugolli=s family, the police arrested Cen and his neighbor, Haxhi Bytyqi, at 8:00 a.m. on June 21, 1998, from their homes in Urołevac. Mihrije Dugolli, Cen=s mother, told Human Rights Watch that Cen was beaten in front of the house by the police. She said:
They hit his head and body, all the time beating him with their fists, kicking him, or hitting him with a rubber baton. Then they put him in an armored vehicle - his blood was flowing.9
According to the family, they tried in vain to learn of Cen=s whereabouts. The following day, Haxhi Bytyqi=s brother learned that the two men had been accused of terrorism and were being held in the Priłtina prison.
8Discharge summary of Rexhep Bislimi, registration number 4174, July 21, 1998, surgery ward, Priłtina hospital, signed by Dr. Alexander PavloviÉ.
9 Human Rights Watch interview with Mihrije Dugolli, Urołevac, September 25, 1998. Human Rights Watch 10 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) The family first visited the prison on July 1. According to Mihrije Dugolli, her son looked tired, and he had some bruises on his face. Dugolli=s lawyer, Destan Rukiqi, visited Dugolli in prison on July 19. Rukiqi told Human Rights Watch that Dugolli had been beaten, but that they could not discuss the details in the presence of the prison guard.10
The Dugolli family visited two more times at two-week intervals, each time for a couple of minutes. The fourth visit was supposed to have been on August 17, but the family was not allowed into the prison. Cen=s wife, Sanije, explained what happened:
We went for a visit, but the police said we can=t come in because they had sent him [Cen] to the hospital. AHe=s sick with stomach problems,@ they said. AWe sent him yesterday, and we hope he survives.@ I asked if we could go and see him in the hospital and he said no, Abecause if you go it will hurt him more.@ He said we cannot see him because the police are guarding the door. I asked if we could leave the food and clothes that we had brought. He said no, and that we should come again after four days, unless he [Cen] goes for an operation.... That night, on the Albanian news at 7:00 p.m., they said that Cen had died. We learned of his death from the satellite television.11
On August 20, the family got the death certificate in the mail. Two days before, however, Cen=s uncle had gone to the morgue to collect the body. He told Human Rights Watch that the police at the morgue questioned him for one and a half hours.
The discharge summary and death certificate, obtained by Human Rights Watch, stated Dugolli=s cause of death as cardiac arrest due to endotoxic shock and metabolic acidosis from a ruptured duodenum (first part of small intestine).12
Human Rights Watch also obtained photographs of Dugolli taken after his death. They show deep bruises, and subcutaneous bleeding along the upper and lower back, and blood around the ear.
While Dugolli was in prison, his lawyer, Destan Rukiqi, was arrested on July 23 for Ainsulting@ Judge Danica MarinkoviÉ while trying to review Dugolli=s case file. Rukiqi himself spent thirty days in prison and was severely beaten on the kidneys while in the Lipljan prison (see below). Rukiqi first learned of Dugolli=s death when he was released from prison on August 22. Dugolli=s neighbor, Haxhi Bytyqi, is still in prison.
Adem Berisha According to the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms, Adem Berisha, thirty-seven years old, from Bruc village, died on August 18, 1998, in the surgery ward of the Priłtina hospital, reportedly from injuries inflicted by the police during his detention in the Prizren state security building. He had been arrested on the Dragał- Prizren road on August 16. The next day he lapsed into a coma and was taken to the hospital in Prizren, where he stayed for one day before being transferred to Priłtina.13
Maksut Qafleshi
10Human Rights Watch interview with Destan Rukiqi, Priłtina, September 18, 1998.
11Human Rights Watch interview with Sanije Dugolli, Urołevac, September 25, 1998.
12Summary discharge and death certificate of Cen Dugolli, registration number 4685, issued on August 17, 1998, signed by Dr. G. JovanoviÉ.
13"Within Two Months Five Albanians Die in Serbian Prisons,@ Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms, September 1998. Human Rights Watch 11 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) According to the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms, on August 23 Maksut Qafleshi from the village Belobrade died as a result of police torture he sustained in Urołevac. Maksut=s brother told the council that Maksut was arrested and beaten by the police on the road between Prizren and Urołevac and was then taken to the police station in Urołevac, where he was denied medical treatment. He was later transferred to the hospital in Priłtina, where he died.14
Bilall Shala
According to Albanian media reports and the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms, on August 29, around 11:00 p.m., forty-seven-year-old Bilall Shala from Urołevac died while in police custody. Shala, an activist with the Christian Democratic Party, was arrested in Urołevac on August 28 together with his son, Agron, who was released later that day, reportedly after being beaten by the police. Bilall=s brother, Zenel Shala, told the Albanian media that he was informed on the evening of August 28 that his brother had died and was in the Priłtina city morgue.15
Human Rights Watch saw photographs taken of Bilall Shala after his autopsy on August 30. The photos show traumatic bruising and internal hemorrhaging on the upper legs, front and back, as well as on the left forearm and hand. Some bruises are also visable on the left shoulder and left cheek (see the Human Rights Watch website: www.hrw.org/reports98/kosovo2/).
ARRESTS AND ABUSE IN DETENTION
The current number of detainees in Kosovo is difficult to determine since the government does not provide updated figures. According to the Serbian Ministry of Justice, 1,242 ethnic Albanians had been charged with Aterrorist acts@ as of October 3, 1998. From this number, only 684 were in custody.16 Human rights and humanitarian aid groups believe the number is higher; according to the Priłtina-based Association of Political Prisoners, approximately 1,500 ethnic Albanians are currently in detention.17
The confusion over the number of detainees is linked to the problem of Adisappearances@ in Kosovo. Human Rights Watch has confirmed that well over one hundred ethnic Albanians have Adisappeared@ in Kosovo since February 199818, approximately half of whom were last seen in the custody of the police.19
A look at the numbers of arrests in just some of Kosovo=s towns and cities suggests that the figures for the entire province are higher than the government suggests.
14Ibid.
15AOne More Albanian Dead From Prison Torture,@ Arta, August 30, 1998, and AAnother Albanian Detainee Dies of Police Torture,@ KIC, August 30, 1998.
16Beta, October 4, 1998.
17Human Rights Watch interview with Ilmi Ramadani, Priłtina, November 13, 1998.
18Human Rights Watch report: Humanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo, October 1998.
19See ADisappearances in Times of Armed Conflict,@ Humanitarian Law Center, Spotlight Report Number 27, August 5, 1998, and A>Disappeared= and >Missing= Persons: the Hidden Victims of Conflict, Amnesty International Report: EUR 70/57/98, August 25, 1998. Human Rights Watch 12 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) C According to Adem Bajri, a prominent lawyer in PeÉ, 251 ethnic Albanians were in the PeÉ jail facing charges of terrorist activity as of September 21, 1998. Criminal charges had been filed against 510 others who remain at large. Mr. Bajri told Human Rights Watch that, in September, he personally had twenty-four clients in prison, all of whom were facing charges of terrorism. Mr. Bajri was allowed to visit his clients and said that virtually all of them showed signs of torture, including injuries such as bruises on the body and broken bones.20
C Hezër Susuri, a lawyer in Prizren, told Human Rights that he personally had forty clients as of late September, all of them facing charges of terrorism. According to Susuri, between 180 and 200 ethnic Albanians are in prison in Prizren; approximately 150 of them had been charged, while the rest were still under investigation, as of September 21.21
C On September 4 and 5, the Serbian police detained more than 600 ethnic Albanians from around the villages of Ponorac, Ratkovac, and Drenovac who had been internally displaced because of fighting.22 According to diplomatic sources who spoke with witnesses, the women and children were released, and the men were taken to the Ponorac schoolhouse, where they were filmed by Serbian state television as Acaptured terrorists.@ Most of the men were reportedly released on September 5 but an estimated thirty-one people remained in police custody, nine of whom were released a few days later. Human Rights Watch saw photographs of the alleged Aterrorists,@ which showed a large group of men on their knees with their hands behind their heads being guarded by armed police officers.
C On September 24, the pro-government Media Center in Priłtina reported that, according to the police, 194 ethnic Albanians had been arrested on September 22 and 23 during a police action in the ÑiÖavica Mountains northwest of Priłtina. The authorities have opened investigations against those arrested. In contrast, on September 26, the ethnic Albanian newspaper Koha Ditore cited Ministry of Interior spokesman Bozidar FiliÉ as saying that 325 Albanians had been arrested in the police action.23
C According to the testimony of villagers taken by Human Rights Watch, on September 28, Serbian police detained all of the ethnic Albanians in a 250-vehicle civilian convoy that was heading back to the town of VraniÉ.24 The women and children were detained at a school in VraniÉ, while the men were separated into two groups. One group of approximately 300 men was detained in a house near the school in VraniÉ. The other group was detained in a school in the nearby village of Bukoł. Once the villagers were in detention, the police burned and looted the village and the convoy. (See the Human Rights Watch website (www.hrw.org) for photographs.)
20Human Rights Watch interview with Aden Bajri, PeÉ, September 21, 1998.
21Human Rights Watch interview with Hazër Susuri, Prizren, September 21, 1998.
22Ljubomir Milasin, AHundreds of Kosovars Detained, UNHCR Warns of Bosnia Spectre,@ AFP, September 8, 1998, and Tanjug, September 6, 1998.
23Koha Ditore, APB e Serbise: Ka perfunduar aksioni ne Qyqavice, jane arrestuar 325 shqiptare,@ September 26, 1998.
24According to villagers, the police sent an elderly Albanian into the forest to tell them it was safe for them to return home. Human Rights Watch 13 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) The approximately 300 men detained in VraniÉ, most of whom were fit and of fighting age, according to villagers, were taken to Prizren for questioning on September 29. According to villagers detained at Bukoł, the men were made to shout pro-Serbian slogans and give the three-fingered Serbian nationalist salute. One man told Human Rights Watch how the detained men were made to crouch all night, and that he personally had been kicked in the face by the police.25
Human Rights Watch was in VraniÉ on September 30 when a group of approximately 200 men were returned to the village from their detention in Prizren. They told Human Rights Watch that they had been detained at the Prizren fire station, where they had been kept without food and maltreated during interrogation about ties to the KLA. Human Rights Watch observed that many of the men had severely swollen hands, consistent with their testimonies of having been beaten with rubber batons. Some of the returning men also had bruises on their backs. A twenty-eight-year-old man told Human Rights Watch: AThey kept beating us all over with rubber batons and their fists. I was beaten for at least two hours. We were given no food or water.@26
C Between September 24 and 27, during the government=s most recent large-scale offensive, the police detained an estimated 400 men from villages in Drenica, including Likołane, Gradice, Dobroshec, and Obrinje. All of them were taken to the police station in Glogovac where they were held in the station=s basement or in a warehouse next to the station for three days. Three men who were detained at this time told Human Rights Watch of systematic interrogations and police beatings of the detainees.27 Two of the men, interviewed separately, testified to having witnessed a policeman pull a handcuffed detainee off of a tractor during transportation to Glogovac and slit his throat.
One of these witnesses, B.H., told Human Rights Watch that he and about one hundred other people were surrounded by the police on September 27 in the forest called Zabelle I Bunarit near Obrinje. The police separated the men and women and then, after a thorough search, further separated another twenty-two men,. These men were bound together two by two and beaten. They were then transported by tractor to nearby Likovac, where the police were based. He told Human Rights Watch what happened next:
A police escort was with us. A policeman was driving the tractor and a police car was in front and behind... In Likovac, the police claimed that they had brought in some KLA, so in one moment, a policeman ran near the tractor, grabbed this guy by the hair [Driton Hysenaj] and slit his throat. I was wearing white socks and they became red because the tractor did not have a place to let the blood drain.28
This account was corroborated by D.H. in a separate interview with Human Rights Watch.29
25Human Rights Watch interview, September 30, 1998, VraniÉ.
26Human Rights Watch interview with H.R., September 30, 1998, VraniÉ.
27Two of the men were interviewed by Human Rights Watch together, but the third man was interviewed separately. Their stories corroborated each other.
28Human Rights Watch interview with B.H., November 12, 1998.
29 Human Rights Watch interview with D.H. November 12, 1998. Human Rights Watch 14 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) According to all three witnesses, approximately 450 men were held at the Glogovac police station, where they were systematically interrogated about the activities of the KLA. Many of them were beaten. Human Rights Watch researchers saw one of the men, A.H., on September 29 with black and blue marks on his lower back and buttocks that were consistent with his claims of having been beaten. Most of the men were released after they passed a paraffin test, but seven men were sent to Priłtina with the police.30
Some specific cases of arrest are outlined below:
A Bus From Slovenia On July 20, the police stopped a bus from the Fati Tours company near Podujevo that was traveling to Kosovo from Ljubljana, Slovenia. Fifty-three ethnic Albanians who had been working in Slovenia were initially arrested. A taxi driver, Besnik Kastrati, who was waiting in Lipljan to pick up people from the bus, was also arrested.
According to Bajram Krasniqi, a lawyer who defended fourteen of the detainees, the group was denied contact with their families and lawyers for three days, while being held in Priłtina. On July 27, they were transferred to Prokuple prison, which lies approximately twenty kilometers outside of Kosovo in the direction of Belgrade.
Krasniqi visited the detainees in Prokuple on July 29. He told Human Rights Watch:
Everyone I saw had marks on their faces. I spoke with fourteen of them who are my clients. They said that all forms of torture had been used: beatings on the fingers, blows from fists and the butt of a gun. It all happened in Priłtina. They said they were beaten by the police and prison guards. Some of them had open wounds on their faces. But in Prokuple the treatment was correct.31
According to Krasniqi, thirty-nine of the detainees were released on August 17. Those still in prison are accused of enemy activities against the state according to Article 136, paragraph 1 of the Serbian penal code.32 The prosecutor alleges that the men were returning to Kosovo to join the KLA.
According to Krasniqi, the police took from the accused a total of 352,018 DM at the time of arrest. Human Rights Watch saw receipts that the police gave to three different individuals, totaling 20,500 DM.
Fatime Boshnjaku Fatime Boshnjaku has been the secretary of the Mother Theresa Society (MTS) in žakovica, the largest local humanitarian organization in Kosovo, for the past nine years. She was arrested on July 13 and is currently in detention awaiting trial on charges of terrorism, based on Articles 125 and 136, paragraph 1, of the Serbian penal code.33 Her lawyer and family members who visited her report that she was beaten.
According to her lawyer, family members, and officials at MTS, who were interviewed separately, Boshnjaku was delivering food and medicine to the village of Łeremet near žakovica on July 11. After her second drop off, she was taken by the police for an Ainformative talk@ in the žakovica police station that lasted approximately two hours. The police reportedly told Boshnjaku that she had to provide the police with a list of everything she distributed.
30Human Rights Watch interview, Gornji Obrinje, September 29, 1998.
31Human Rights Watch interview with Bajram Krasniqi, September 19, 1998.
32Republic of Serbia Prosecutor=s Office, Kt. Nr. 55/98, July 23, 1998, Prokuple, signed by District Prosecutor Miroslav NikioliÉ. Those in prison are: Ramadan Avdiu, Ali Gashi, Qazim Krasniqi, Azem Krasniqi, Imer Krasniqi, Burim Blaca, Naim Balje, Nuhi Beke, Enver Zogaj, Feriz Zabelaj, Halit Nerecaj, Rahim Alia, Xhavit Kacanik, Hajrullah Samadraxha, and S. BytyÉi.
33 OkruÒni Sud u Prizrenu, Ki. Br. 40/98, August 6, 1998. Human Rights Watch 15 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) The next day, according to an MTS official, she was allowed to pass through a police checkpoint on her way to Brekoc village, where she delivered supplies.34 She returned to žakovica, reloaded her van, and headed off again for Brekoc. This time she was stopped by the police around 2:00 p.m. and taken back to the police station in žakovica. Her two colleagues, Uran Luxha and Shar Hasimja, were also detained. Luxha and Hasimja were released the next day, on the condition that they report again to the police on July 14. Boshnjaku was held in žakovica until July 15, when she was taken in front of the investigative judge in PeÉ, who ordered her into pre-trial detention for thirty days.
Boshnjaku=s family was allowed to visit her on July 12 and 14 and told Human Rights Watch that she had not been beaten. They did not hire a lawyer at that time because, on July 14, the police informed her brother-in-law that Boshnjaku would soon be released.
Luxha and Hasimja were summoned back to the police station again around July 21. According to Boshnjaku=s family, they were beaten by the police, forced to sign statements against Boshnjaku, and then released. Both men have since gone into hiding.35
Boshnjaku=s family first had permission to visit the Lipljan women=s prison on July 23, but they were denied entry that day because, according to the prison guards, there had been a flood in the visiting room. Boshnjaku=s lawyer, Liria Osmani, was also not allowed to visit her client on July 23, because of Aflooding.@ Osmani first visited on July 26, and told Human Rights Watch that she was not able to talk with her client in the presence of the guards, but that Boshnjaku=s arms were Acompletely black.@36
Boshnjaku=s family visited for the first time on August 3 and again on August 17. Her sister told Human Rights Watch that she showed no open signs of physical abuse, but that Ashe was very upset and out of control,@ and that she was having trouble hearing out of one ear.
On August 13, Boshnjaku=s pre-trial detention was extended for another sixty days. As of mid-December, no trial date had been set.
According to Boshnjaku=s family and lawyer, the police in žakovica may have been angry about an incident on May 18, when four trucks of aid from the U.S. agency Mercy Corp were confiscated by the police. Boshnjaku reportedly complained to U.S. Chief of Mission Richard Miles, who was in žakovica that day, and he was able to secure the release of the supplies.37
Zahride Podrimçaku
34Human Rights Watch interview with Marte Polokaj, Priłtina, September 22, 1998.
35Human Rights Watch interview with Nesrete and Erzen Boshnjaku, Priłtina, September 27, 1998.
36Human Rights Watch interview with Liria Osmani, Priłtina, October 1, 1998.
37Mercy Corp in Priłtina confirmed to Human Rights Watch that the police had confiscated a load on May 18, but that it was eventually returned. Human Rights Watch 16 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) Ms. Zahride Podrimçaku, a twenty-eight-year-old activist with the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms in Glogovac, was detained by police in Priłtina on June 8, 1998, together with Ibrahim Makolli, who works at the council=s offices in Priłtina.38 Mr. Makolli was released after a few hours of questioning, but Ms. Podrimçaku remained in custody and was denied contact with a lawyer or her family for several days. On September 8, she was charged with committing Aterrorist acts@ (Articles 125 and 136 of the Serbian penal code) for allegedly having transported military goods, including an automatic weapon, to a KLA commander in Drenica.39
The state accused Podrimçaku of two concrete acts: first, that in December 1997 she delivered an automatic weapon to a KLA commander in Drenica named Sabit Gecaj; second, that she carried a suitcase with military clothing (five shirts, three sweaters, three pants, and three boots) to the KLA, again to commander Gecaj.
According to Podrimçaku=s lawyer, Liria Osmani, Podrimçaku admitted to carrying both suitcases on Gecaj=s request. After the first delivery, she saw that there was a machine gun inside, and she still agreed to carry the second suitcase, which evidently only had the clothing. Osmani said that Podrimçaku was beaten in prison. She told Human Rights Watch:
I first visited on June 19 in Lipljan. She was in bad condition. She couldn=t sit in the chair. She had external signs of abuse, and she couldn=t sit on the chair. Even ten days later, she was still in bad shape. She said she was continuously beaten, especially with their fists and by kicking. She was beaten by two women, but not on the face.
When I visited on August 12 she complained heavily because they had beaten her a lot, and she had pain in her shoulders and hip. She wanted to tell me more, but there were two guards present. The younger guard said the visit must end.40
According to Liria Osmani, she complained to the head of the women=s prison about Podrimçaku=s beatings. The head of the prison reportedly admitted that they had beaten Podrimçaku, but Aonly once,@ because she was not respecting the prison regulations. Podrimçaku is currently awaiting trial but, as of December 1, no court date had been set.
Besa Arllati Ms. Besa Arllati, chairwoman of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) information commission in žakovica, was arrested on May 26 and brought to the police station in žakovica, where she was interrogated and beaten by police chief Sreten ÇamatoviÉ.41 The police reportedly wanted to know about two Serbian policemen, Nikola JovanoviÉ and Rade PopadiÉ, who they believed had been seized by the KLA. Arllati was detained and interrogated on and off for the next few days, until June 1, about the work of the KLA and the activities of Albanians in the area.
Mevlude Sarraqi
38Podrimçaku had been investigating what happened on May 31, 1998, in the village of Novi Poklek, when police detained ten ethnic Albanian men during an attack on the village. The body of one of the men, Ardian Deliu, was found the next day, while the other nine men remain missing and are presumed dead. Her arrest occurred about one hour after she had spoken with a Human Rights Watch researcher about her investigations in Novi Poklek.
39Republika Srbija, AP Kosovo I Metohija, OkruÒno Javno TuÒilałtvo, KT br. 126/98, Priłtina, September 8, 1998.
40Human Rights Watch interview with Liria Osmani, Priłtina, October 1, 1998.
41Humanitarian Law Center, AKosovo - Disappearances in Times of Armed Conflict,@ Spotlight Report No. 27, August 5, 1998. Human Rights Watch 17 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) Mrs. Mevlude Sarraqi, member of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) presidency, head of the LDK Women=s Forum, and a member of the shadow Kosovo parliament, was arrested on June 1 in žakovica and charged with Aassociation for the purpose of hostile activity@ under Article 136 of the Serbian penal code. She was arrested in advance of a rally organized by the Women=s Forum to protest the detention of LDK activists, such as Dr. Fehmi Vula and Besa Arllati. Sarraqi=s lawyer, Liria Osmani, told Human Rights Watch that her client had been physically maltreated during her four days in the žakovica state security building.42 As of December 1, she was in Lipljan women=s prison awaiting trial.43
A.D. A.D. is a primary school teacher with five children from Zaskok village near Urołevac. He was arrested on June 28, 1998, tortured with electric shock, and then held in prison for eighty-six days.
According to A.D., three or four plainclothes policemen came to his home around 5:30 a.m. and ordered him to the police station in Urołevac without an explanation. They took him to the state security building, on the fourth floor, where they accused him of hiding weapons for the KLA, which, he claimed, was not true. They insisted that he had weapons and was working with the KLA in the village and started to beat him. He told Human Rights Watch:
They beat me with a truncheon all over my body, but not on the head... They were changing, three or four policemen always beating me. They asked about my activity in the KLA, about weaponry. Do you know this person, for example. They let me recover, and we had a normal talk, and then they would start the beating again.44
According to A.D., he slept the first night in the interrogation room in Urołevac, and was then taken to Gnijlane prison. The night of June 30, the beating and torture continued:
They took me around 8:00 or 9:00 p.m.. There were some questions and some answers. Where are your weapons and with whom do you cooperate? There was also electric shock. The rubber baton was the least severe. I got used to it. It was like nothing.
They used electric shock. There is some kind of engine. They kept touching me with a part, and every time I received a shock. That was the most difficult. Then they would ask some questions. It was very painful... I can=t remember the number of times, I could only count the first few. I lost consciousness. They used water and a ventilator to reawaken me.
According to A.D., the abuse stopped after three days in prison. On July 3 he was taken to the investigative judge Danica MarinkoviÉ in Priłtina, who ordered A.D. to be held in pre-trial detention. A.D. had a lawyer present, who was subsequently allowed to visit him four or five times in prison. On September 22, the charges against A.D. were dropped without an explanation, and he was released.
Xhavet Haziri Xhavet Haziri, thirty-eight years old from ObiliÉ, is a former political prisoner and a staff member at the main office of the Council for Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms office in Priłtina. Since August 1998, he had been responsible at the council for maintaining the list of those arrested and Adisappeared@ in Kosovo.
42Human Rights Watch interview with Liria Osmani, Priłtina, October 1, 1998.
43Ibid.
44 Human Rights Watch interview with A.D., Zaskok, September 25, 1998. Human Rights Watch 18 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D)
On September 17, 1998, Haziri was abducted by unknown individuals believed to be the police near the Llapit mosque in central Priłtina. Witnesses to the abduction told staff members at the council that they saw Haziri walking toward work around 11:00 a.m. A car stopped in front of him, the witnesses said, threw him in the car and drove away. Neither Haziri=s family nor the council has had any information about his whereabouts since then, despite repeated inquiries to the police. Human Rights Watch was unable to speak directly with the witnesses, since they had left Kosovo.
Dr. Hafir Shala On April 10, 1998, Dr. Hafir Shala, a doctor with the Health Care Center in Glogovac, was taken into detention by the police, along with two friends, Hetem Sinani and Shaban Neziri. The latter two were interrogated and released but Mr. Shala was held. He has not been seen or heard from since.
The three men were traveling in Shaban Neziri=s car to Priłtina when the traffic police stopped the car near Slatina village around 8:00 a.m. As the police were checking their identification, three men in plain clothes emerged from a black jeep that was parked nearby and told Dr. Shala to come with them to Priłtina, while Mr. Sinani and Mr. Neziri were instructed to follow in their car. All three men were taken to the police station in Priłtina and interrogated in separate rooms until 2:00 p.m.. At that time, Mr. Sinani and Mr. Neziri were released. They told their lawyer, Destan Rukiqi, that they heard Dr. Shala screaming from pain from an unknown room in the police station as they left.45
Mr. Rukiqi told Human Rights Watch that he had taken various measures to locate Dr. Shala, all to no avail. On April 16, he wrote to the Serbian Ministry of Justice, the Serbian Prosecutor=s office, and the district prosecutor in Priłtina. The next day, the Priłtina prosecutor, Slavko Stevanovic, said the State Security office in Priłtina had no information on Shala=s whereabouts. Letters written by Human Rights Watch to the Serbian and Yugoslav Ministries of Interior and Justice on July 20, 1998, on Dr. Shala=s case remain unanswered.
Nait Hasani Nait Hasani was arrested and tortured in 1997. According to his family and lawyer, the beatings are continuing. Hasani, a thirty-three-year-old man from Randobrava village near Prizren, was arrested in Priłtina on January 28, 1997. The next day, Nait=s family got unofficial information that Nait had been severely beaten and was in the Priłtina hospital. A health worker at the hospital claimed to have seen Nait handcuffed to a bed in a coma with severe injuries on his face. Nait=s family and lawyer, Fazli Balaj, were unable to get any information from the police or the hospital. Nait=s father, Xhemail, and brother were denied entry to the hospital by police guards.46
In the early morning of January 31, Nait was moved from the hospital to an undisclosed location. His family and lawyer did not know where he was for approximately one month, and feared he was dead. On February 14, the district prosecutor denied that Hasani was in police custody.47 On February 28, Hasani reappeared and was brought before an investigating magistrate. His lawyer Fazli Balaj visited Hasani for the first time and was told that Hasani had been tortured by the police while being held in incommunicado detention.
45Human Rights Watch interview with Destan Rukiqi, Priłtina, June 3, 1998.
46Human Rights Watch interview with Fazli Balaj, Priłtina, February 19, 1997.
47 Doc. U. VJC-4, signed by District Prosecutor Slavko StevanoviÉ, February 14, 1997. Human Rights Watch 19 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) In December 1997, Nait Hasani was sentenced to twenty years of imprisonment on charges of Aterrorism,@ after a trial Amnesty International determined was not fair.48 Complaints of torture were rejected by the presiding judge.
According to Hasani=s father and lawyer, the beatings did not stop, even in 1998. Xhemail Hasani told Human Rights Watch that Nait showed signs of having been beaten during his visit to Mitrovica prison on July 4, 1998. Nait reportedly looked better during the next visit on August 8, but no visitors were allowed for the following visit, scheduled for September 5. On September 29, Xhemail Hasani received a telegram, allegedly from his son, that was seen by Human Rights Watch. It said:
I am informing you that my health condition is good and I hope you are all well. As usual, you can visit me on the first Saturday of October, but in the future visits we must speak Serbian. And you must have permission from the judge to visit. Please say hi to everyone for me. - Your son.49
UNFAIR TRIALS AND ABUSE
A number of trials were held in September, October, and November 1998 for accused terrorists, all of whom accused of violating Articles 125 and/or 136 of the Serbian penal code.50 According to the Ministry of Justice, eight judges were sent from other parts of Serbia to deal with the heavy case load in November and December.51 The evidence provided by lawyers and former prisoners, as well as experience from the past, strongly suggests that these trials were not fair. First and foremost is the ongoing problem of abuse in detention to extract a confession. Numerous violations of due process follow, such as restricted access to a lawyer, restricted access to the case material, and biased judges, who prohibit the defense from presenting evidence or witnesses on their behalf. Rarely, if ever, do judges accept complaints of abuse in detention. There are some cases, however, where the defendants were acquitted, but not only after spending as much as three months in pre-trial detention, during which time many of them were beaten.
The Students From Prizren On May 23, eight students from the Pedagogical High School AXhevdet Doda@ in Prizren and one student from the University of Priłtina, all of them members of the Students= Independent Union, were arrested in Prizren. On June 8, they were charged with KLA membership and committing terrorist acts. On August 24, they were convicted of Aenemy activity@ against the state and sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to seven and a half years. The charges leveled against the students were in connection with their having organized a first aid course in Prizren at the local high school. The course, which began on May 19, ran for only four days before they were arrested. Four of the students were also charged with having contacted the KLA, a charge that the students admitted. According to them, they had contacted the KLA out of curiosity, but had never joined the group or cooperated with it in any way.
The lawyer for three of the students, Hazër Susuri, told Human Rights Watch that his two male clients, Bylbyl Duraku and Sejdi Bullanica, were both beaten in pre-trial detention, although his female client, Behare Tafallari, was not abused. He said:
48AUnfair Trials and Abuses of Due Process,@ Amnesty International, A Human Rights Crisis in Kosovo Province, Document Series A: Events to June 1998, June 1998.
49Sremska Mitrovica 62/60 290826
50Trials were held in the five court districts of Kosovo: Prizren, PeÉ, Priłtina, Mitrovica, and Gnjilane.
51NT Plus, September 18, 1998. The judges are Goran PetronijeviÉ, Rade MiÖunoviÉ, Pavle VukałinoviÉ, Branislav Bla ÒiÉ, Nebojsa ZivkoviÉ, ivota DojnÖeviÉ, Jovana Krstica, and Dragoljuba Stankovica. Human Rights Watch 20 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) They had dark ears, which is typical for electric shock that you get in the state security. This part of the nose [the nostrils] was also dark. Their hands were swollen. There were bruises on their bodies. I asked them to show me. My first question was did they torture you? And they showed me. They said that no part of the bodies was left untouched.52
Mr. Susuri asked for the prison to provide a doctor=s examination to document the abuse, but his request was refused. The court also rejected his argument that his clients had confessed due to torture.
The trial was postponed three times. When it finally took place, on August 24, the entire proceedings for all nine students lasted four and a half hours, according to Mr. Susuri and an observer from an international organization that monitored the trial. All nine students were found guilty only on the basis of their own confessions, without any supporting evidence provided by the prosecution. Mr. Susuri was not allowed to present fellow students as witnesses on behalf of the defense. The students= sentences were as follows:
Nijazi Kryeziu (21) seven and a half years in prison Aqif Iljazi (21) six and a half years in prison Bylbyl Duraku (22) five and a half years in prison Sejdi Bellanica (23) three and a half years in prison Defrim Rifaj (22) two and a half years in prison Behare Tafallari (22) two years in prison Jehona Krasniqi (22) two years in prison Leonora Morina (21) two years in prison Sherif Iljazi (20) one year in prison
On November 12, the three female students, Jehona, Lenora, and Behare, were released from prison.
Ahmet Gjonovci On October 1, Human Rights Watch monitored the trial of Ahmet Gjonovci, a lawyer from Priłtina, who was accused of terrorism under Article 125 of the Serbian penal code.53 He was acquitted, but spent three months in prison and, according to his lawyer, was beaten.
52Human Rights Watch interview with Hazër Susuri, Prizren, September 21, 1998.
53 Republika Srbija, AP Kosovo I Metohija, OkruÒno Javno TuÒilałtvo, KT br. 118/98, Priłtina, July 6, 1998. Human Rights Watch 21 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) Gjonovci was arrested on June 5 at a police checkpoint at OrloviÉ. According to his lawyer, Fazli Balaj, Gjonovci was returning from the town of ObiliÉ, where he had picked up a suitcase for a friend.54 The police stopped Gjonovci=s car, opened the suitcase, and found: four vests, one pair of sport pants, three t-shirts, two pairs of sports shoes, three pairs of regular shoes, four pairs of house slippers, and three wrist watches. The police arrested him at once and sent him to the state security building in Priłtina.
Gjonovci stayed four days in the state security building and was beaten on the third day. The police claimed that he had been transporting bullet-proof vests and other military equipment for the KLA.
After four days, Gjonovci was taken to the Priłtina investigative judge Danica MarinkoviÉ, who accused Gjonovci of having transported military equipment and of having taken three doctors to the village of Likovac in Drenica to treat KLA fighters. Gjonovci admitted to having brought three doctors to Likovac, which is near his home village of Makermale, but claimed that he brought them there to treat the internally displaced and other needy villagers. MarinkoviÉ ordered him to pre-trial detention for thirty days, which was later extended by another sixty days.
The first trial hearing, on September 25, lasted two hours and was postponed until October 1; Human Rights Watch attended. At the hearing, Gjonovci appeared in good health. The judge, Dragolub ZdravkoviÉ, presented some of the evidence to the court: three wrist watches and four vests the Gjonovci was allegedly transporting for the KLA. The cotton vests were beige and multi-pocketed, similar to the vests worn by journalists or fishermen. Human Rights Watch did not see any indication that these vests had a specific military function. The trial proceeded normally and, after one hour, Gjonovci was acquitted.
Destan Rukiqi Destan Rukiqi, a lawyer in Priłtina who has defended dozens of ethnic Albanian political prisoners in Kosovo in recent years, was arrested on July 23, 1998, and sentenced that same day in an expedited proceeding to the maximum sixty days in prison for disturbing public order. Rukiqi was beaten on his third day in detention and suffered severe damage to his kidneys.
The arrest was related to an incident on the morning of July 23, when Rukiqi got into an argument with the investigative judge in Priłtina, Danica MarinkoviÉ.55 According to Rukiqi, MarinkoviÉ had prohibited him from viewing the file of his client, Cen Dugolli, for two days. On the third day, July 23, Rukiqi was allowed to see Dugolli=s file, but was forbidden to take notes. When Rukiqi took notes nonetheless, MarinkoviÉ snatched the file from his hands, and an argument ensued. According to Rukiqi, he stormed out saying, AI am in the court but you are acting like the police.@56
That afternoon, around 12:30 p.m., a plainclothes policeman came to Rukiqi=s law office in central Priłtina while Sylvan Roy, a representative of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Fazli Balaj, a lawyer, were visiting.57 The police said that they had to speak with Rukiqi about that morning=s incident with Judge MarinkoviÉ; Rukiqi went peacefully, thinking that the discussion would not last long. He was taken to the Priłtina police station and immediately charged with offending a judge - a violation of Article 6, paragraph 3 of the Serbian Law on Public Order.
54Human Rights Watch interview with Fazli Balaj, October 1, 1998.
55Judge MarinkoviÉ has presided over a number of political trials against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in which the defendants were tortured. See Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, APersecution Persists: Human Rights Violations in Kosovo,@ December 1996, p. 22.
56Human Rights Watch interview with Destan Rukiqi, September 18, 1998.
57 Sylvan Roy and Fazli Balaj independently confirmed for Human Rights Watch Rukiqi=s version of the event. Human Rights Watch 22 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) Rukiqi was allowed to summon two lawyers, Fazli Balaj and Bajram Kelmendi, who arrived at the courthouse shortly after 3:00 p.m.. In an expedited procedure that lasted one hour, Rukiqi was tried, convicted, and sentenced to the maximum sixty days in prison by the presiding judge, Judge SaranoviÉ.
Rukiqi was immediately taken to Lipljan prison where he was placed in solitary confinement in a cell two meters by one meter. For three days he was ordered to clean the prison hallways with a brush. On the third day, July 26, he was summoned by a prison guard to the room where lawyers visit their clients. Rukiqi told Human Rights Watch what happened next:
I had been there before to visit clients. It was no coincidence that they took me there. There was another guard there. They asked me why I had spoken about politics and the KLA, and they called me a sympathizer with Albanian terrorists. I said it is not true and asked them to bring me the person who accused me of those things. They said that was not necessary because this was not a court.
That is when they started to hit me with long rubber batons that are specially made for this - about one meter long. They hit me on the hands and on my feet, both of them. Then they laid me down on the ground and hit me on the feet. One of them on each foot. Then they put me with my hands against the wall and they hit me on the kidneys. I passed out after about half an hour. I heard them say, ASo, will you defend terrorists again? Will you have sympathy for Albanian terrorists?@58
According to Rukiqi, he was not provided with a doctor for two days, despite intense pain and repeated requests. Two days later, on July 30, he was transferred to the hospital in Priłtina, close to slipping into a coma. No visitors were allowed, including Rukiqi=s wife, who works as a doctor in the hospital. On July 31, Rukiqi underwent dialysis for the first of eleven times over the next two weeks. On August 6, he was transferred to the prison hospital in Belgrade, where he said he was treated correctly. On August 9, his wife was first allowed to visit. On August 20, Rukiqi=s sentence was reduced by the Supreme Court of Serbia to thirty days, and he was released two days later.
Human Rights Watch visited Rukiqi in Priłtina on September 18. He was recovering, but was still not allowed out of his apartment by his doctor. As of December 1, no one connected with his beating had been held accountable.
Before the beating, Rukiqi had been involved in a number of human rights related cases, and he had provided information on war crimes committed by Serbian special police forces in Kosovo to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
UNOFFICIAL PLACES OF DETENTION
Since the beginning of the Kosovo conflict in February 1998, there have been serious allegations that the authorities were holding ethnic Albanians in unofficial places of detention. The allegations raised concern due to the experience in Bosnia, where factories and other such places were used as temporary prisons or camps. Some of the worst abuses of the Bosnia war took place in such detention facilities.
The first credible allegation was made in May during the first large-scale government offensive along the border with Albania. Unconfirmed reports spoke of a detention facility at the Dekor factory in DeÖan, but Human Rights Watch has not been able to confirm these allegations.
Beginning in late May, allegations arose about another detention facility in the ferrous-nickel plant, a large compound in the town of Glogovac in Drenica. Many villagers in the area, as well as foreign journalists, told Human Rights Watch that they had seen special police forces entering and leaving the compound - reportedly using it as a base - but nobody ever confirmed the presence of detainees. On June 22, two journalists from Danish TV2, Neils Brinch
58 Human Rights Watch interview with Destan Rukiqi, September 18, 1998. Human Rights Watch 23 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) and Heinrik Gram, and their Albanian interpreter, were fired upon while driving in an armored car near the ferrous- nickel plant, which fueled suspicions. No one was hurt.
A team from the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission (KDOM), after numerous previous attempts, was finally allowed to visit the site on October 8, 1998. The team reported no signs that the plant had been used as a detention facility.
Human Rights Watch spoke with a number of villagers throughout Kosovo who had been held in various unofficial places, such as the firestation in Prizren, for some days after arrest. Usually this was due to a lack of space at the local police station or prison. Many of the detainees were beaten in such places, but there is no evidence of executions in these cases.
DETENTIONS AND ABUSE BY THE KLA
Since February 1998, the KLA has committed some serious violations of international humanitarian law, including taking civilian hostages and committing extrajudicial executions.59 These abuses are violations of the laws of war, and can be prosecuted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.60
It is unknown how many people are currently in KLA detention since the KLA does not provide statistics. Public acknowledgment from the KLA that it has detained someone has only occured when such individuals are well known, such as a Serbian policeman or journalist. Some of these individuals were subsequently released.
59AHumanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo,@ Human Rights Watch, October 1998.
60The rules of internal armed conflict, outlined in Common Article 3 and Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions, are binding on both governments and armed insurgencies. As such, the KLA is legally obliged to respect the provisions of international humanitarian law, such as the protection of noncombatants and the prohibition of hostage taking. Human Rights Watch 24 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) Depending on the source, the KLA is responsible for between 100 and 300 missing persons since February 1998, including both ethnic Serbs and Albanians, as well as some Roma and Turks.61 It is not known whether these people have been killed, are in hiding, or are currently in KLA custody.
By its own admission, the KLA has executed some of the people in its custody.62 As of December 1, 1998, the Serbian authorities had found three sites where KLA executions had allegedly taken place: four bodies near Klina on September 30, thirty-four bodies near Glodjane on September 9, and twenty-two bodies in KleÖka on August 27.63
The ICRC has been denied access to KLA detainees, which raises suspicions about their safety. In an Associated Press article from November 11, 1998, an ICRC representative said, Awe still have problems to find any information, let alone access, on Serbs who=ve been abducted.@64
On a number of occasions, the KLA has released people in its custody. On July 22, the KLA handed thirty-five ethnic Serb civilians over to the ICRC, after they had been detained on July 19 during fighting in Orahovac.
61In an October 1998 statement, the International Committee for the Red Cross said that it was dealing with approximately 140 cases of civilians reportedly abducted by the KLA; the ICRC had been denied access to these people. (See The ICRC in Kosovo, October 1998.) A local human rights organization, the Humanitarian Law Center, which has been monitoring detentions and abductions by the police and the KLA, documented 103 ethnic Serbs who were unaccounted for as of August 1998, thirty-nine of whom were last seen in KLA custody. (See Humanitarian Law Center, AKosovo - Disappearances in Times of Armed Conflict,@ Spotlight Report No. 27, August 5, 1998.) The center also documented the cases of three ethnic Albanians abducted by the KLA, ostensibly because they were considered Acollaborators@ with the Yugoslav government, whose whereabouts are currently unknown. According to a statement from the Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued on August 31, 1998, Albanian Aterrorists@ had abducted 178 individuals in Kosovo, including 128 ethnic Serbs and Montenegrins, forty-two ethnic Albanians, and six ethnic Roma. Out of this group, thirty-nine were released, seven escaped, and sixteen had been killed, leaving 114 people still in KLA detention. (See Statement of the Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belgrade, August 31, 1998.) According to the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs, 233 civilians were Akidnaped@ from January 1 to September 13 (157 Serbs and Montenegrins, 67 Albanians, 6 Roma, 1 Macedonian, 1 Muslim, and 1 Bulgarian.), as well as ten policemen. (See AWho is Violating Human Rights in Kosovo and Metohija,@ Republic of Serbia, Ministry of Internal Affairs, September 1998.) In November, the Democratic Party, a Serbian political party in opposition to MilołeviÉ headed by Zoran DjindjiÉ, compiled a list of persons believed to have been abducted by the KLA. The party claimed that approximately 300 people were missing, most of them ethnic Serbs, although it only compiled a list with ninety-eight names and dates of birth.
62In an interview given on July 11, 1998, KLA spokesman Jakup Krasniqi said: AThose we have kidnaped are either announced on a list or reported to be executed, but we do not behave in a base fashion like Serbia.@ See AHumanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo,@ Human Rights Watch, October 1998, p. 76.
63See AHumanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo,@ Human Rights Watch, October 1998.
64"People Kidnapped, Lawyer Beaten - All in the Name of Law in Kosovo,@ by Elena Becatoros, Associated Press, November 11, 1998. Human Rights Watch 25 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) On October 18, Nebojsa RadoseviÉ, a journalist for the state-run news agency Tanjug, and Vladimir DobriciÉ, a Tanjug photographer, went missing near the village of Magura. The KLA subsequently confirmed that they were in KLA detention and facing charges of spying. In early November, the two journalists were charged with sixty days in AKLA prison No. 7@ after a trial that, based on the KLA=s own information, failed to meet international standards of due process. Although two representatives of the KLA General Headquarters, members of the political and judicial directorate, told Human Rights Watch that the trial was fair, and that the defendants had not been mistreated, they admitted that the defendants had not had legal representation and that they had not been present at their trial.65 A Human Rights Watch request to visit the detainees was denied for reasons of Amilitary secrecy.@
On November 27, in honor of Albanian Flag Day, the KLA released the two journalists in the presence of U.S. diplomat William Walker, who heads the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) mission in Kosovo. Two ethnic Albanian political activists from the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) in Maliłevo, Jakup Kastrati and Cen Desku, who had been in KLA detention for three weeks, were also amnestied. A KLA communique released on November 27 said the amnesties demonstrated the KLA=s commitment to international conventions governing warfare.66 On November 24, the KLA released a Serb policeman after a U.S. diplomatic intervention.
Two other journalists believed to have been abducted by the KLA are still missing. Djuro Slavuj and his driver, Ranko PeriniÉ, from the state-run Radio Priłtina, were last seen in Orahovac on August 21. According to the Radio Priłtina office, the two left Orahovac for the nearby town of Maliłevo in a blue Zastava car, but never arrived.67 As of December 1, neither the radio station nor their family members had received any news on the whereabouts.
LEGAL STANDARDS
Domestic Law The Federal Constitution of Yugoslavia, promulgated in 1992, established Yugoslavia as a democratic state Afounded on the rule of law.@ The forty-nine articles of the section on rights and freedoms guarantee all Yugoslav citizens their basic civil and political rights, such as free speech, free association and the right to a fair trial.
Regarding minority rights, the constitution guarantees the rights of minorities to Apreserve, foster and express their ethnic, cultural, linguistic and other attributes, as well as to use their national symbols, in accordance with international law.@68 Article 20 states that:
Citizens shall be equal irrespective of their nationality, race, sex, language, faith, political or other beliefs, education, social origin, property, or other personal status.
Yugoslav law guarantees all defendants the right to due process. Article 23 of the federal constitution forbids arbitrary detention and obliges the authorities to inform a detainee immediately of the reason for his or her detention and grant that person the right to a lawyer. Article 24 obliges the authorities to inform the detainee in writing of the reason for his or her arrest within twenty-four hours. Detention ordered by a lower court may not exceed three months,
65Human Rights Watch interview, November 10, 1998.
66AThe KLA General Headquarters Declares an Amnesty for Two Tanjug Reporters and Two LDK Activists,@ Arta, November 27, 1998.
67Human Rights Watch telephone interview with journalist at Radio Priłtina, August 26, 1998.
68Constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Article 11.
Human Rights Watch 26 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) unless extended by a higher court to a maximum of six months. Article 25 outlaws torture of a detainee, as well as any forcible extraction of confessions or statements. The use of force against a detainee is also a criminal offense. Article 25 says:
Respect for the human personality and human dignity shall be guaranteed in criminal and in any other proceeding in the case of deprivation or restriction of liberty and during the enforcement of a penalty.
Any violence against a person deprived of liberty or whose liberty has been restricted, as well as any extortion of a confession or statement shall be forbidden and punishable. No one may be subjected to torture, degrading treatment or punishment.
The Criminal Code of Yugoslavia (1976) contains a number of criminal offenses with sanctions envisaged for torture or degrading treatment. Article 190, on the extortion of depositions, states:
Whosoever in an official capacity resorts to force, threat or other impermissible means or impermissible ways with the intention of extorting a deposition or other statement from the accused, witnesses, experts or other persons, shall be punished by imprisonment from three months to five years.
If the extortion of the deposition or statement is attended by severe violence or if, due to the extortion of a statement, particularly grave consequences have arisen for the accused in criminal proceedings, the perpetrator shall be punished by imprisonment of at least one year.
Article 191, on maltreatment in the discharge of office, states:
Whosoever in an official capacity ill-treats, insults or generally treats another person in a way outrageous to human dignity, he/she shall be punished by imprisonment from three months to three years.
International Law Police abuse, arbitrary arrests, and the failure to accord due process in trial proceedings violate international human rights norms binding upon Yugoslavia, in particular, those codified in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture).69 The provisions of international humanitarian law, which came into play with the outbreak of armed conflict in Yugoslavia, bar much of the same conduct. An essential difference, however, is that while certain human rights standards may be derogated from in officially declared public emergencies that threaten the life of the nation, the provisions of international humanitarian law are nonderogable, for both governments and insurgency forces, such as the KLA.
69Yugoslavia ratified the ICCPR on June 2, 1971; it ratified the Convention Against Torture on June 20, 1991. According to Article 16 of the federal constitution, Yugoslavia Ashall fulfill in good faith the obligations contained in international treaties to which it is a Contracting Party.@ Human Rights Watch 27 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) The fighting in Kosovo during 1998 has unquestionably been of sufficient intensity to fall within the bounds of Article 3 common to the four 1949 Geneva Conventions, which regulates internal armed conflicts.70 In view of the KLA=s command structure, control of territory, and expressed willingness to abide by the rules of war, Human Rights Watch has also been evaluating the conduct of the KLA and government forces by the standards enshrined in Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions.71
The most grievous affront to basic international human rights and humanitarian norms that Human Rights Watch has documented in Kosovo is the violation of the right to life. The ICCPR, Common Article 3, and Protocol II absolutely prohibit the killing of detainees. Also barred by the Convention against Torture, as well as the above documents, is the torture and ill-treatment of detainees, and thus the beatings and other forms of police brutality that are frequently practiced against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.72
Article 9 of the ICCPR prohibits arbitrary arrest or detention. To comply with Article 9, the state must specify in its legislation the grounds on which individuals may be deprived of their liberty and the procedures to be used in enforcing deprivations of liberty. Only arrests conducted in accordance with such rules are considered lawful, thus restricting the discretion of individual police officers. Moreover, the prohibition on arbitrariness means that the deprivation of liberty, even if provided for by law, must still be proportional to the reason for arrest, as well as predictable. Article 9 also specifically requires that detainees be immediately informed of the reasons for their arrest and promptly told of any charges against them, and that they be brought promptly before a judge empowered to rule upon the lawfulness of the detention. In the view of Human Rights Watch, these requirements have been routinely violated in Kosovo.
Finally, the right to due process at trial is protected under Article 14 of the ICCPR. Article 14 guarantees, among other rights, that a defendant must enjoy a Afair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal@; must Ahave adequate time and facilities@ for the preparation of his defense; must have access to and the ability to communicate with legal counsel of his own choosing; and must be allowed to Aexamine, or have examined, the witnesses against him and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf.@ Reinforcing these guarantees are Protocol II=s similar due process protections for crimes Arelated to the armed conflict.@73 It is evident that the summary trials and restrictions on the right to defense that Human Rights Watch has documented in Kosovo have not accorded with these requirements.
70On July 7, 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia declared publicly that the hostilities in Kosovo had reached the level of an armed conflict, although the starting date for that designation was not specified. In October 1998, a cease-fire was declared between the KLA and the Yugoslav government. For further information on the history and conduct of the conflict, see Human Rights Watch, AFederal Republic of Yugoslavia: Humanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo,@ Vol. 10, No. 9, October 1998.
71Protocol II supplements Common Article 3. It is invoked when armed conflicts:
take place in the territory of a High Contracting Party between its armed forces and dissident armed forces of other organized armed groups which, under responsible command, exercise such control over a part of its territory as to enable them to carry out sustained and concerted military operations and to implement this Protocol.
Protocol II, art. 1(1). For a more comprehensive discussion of Protocol II=s applicability, see Human Rights Watch, AFederal Republic of Yugoslavia: Humanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo,@ pp. 52-54.
72ICCPR, art. 7; Convention against Torture, arts. 2 and 16; Article 3 Common (prohibiting Acruel treatment and torture@ of persons taking no active part in the hostilities); Protocol II, art. 4(2)(a) (prohibiting Acruel treatment such as torture@ of persons taking no active part in the hostilities).
73Among other due process requirements, Article 6 of Protocol II provides that defendants must be prosecuted before a court Aoffering the essential guarantees of independence and impartiality,@ and must enjoy Aall necessary rights and means of defense.@ Human Rights Watch 28 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) APPENDIX A
List of Prisons
Prison sites in Kosovo: Priłtina, Gnjilane, Kosovska Mitrovica, PeÉ, Prizren, and Lipljan.
Prison sites outside of Kosovo: Nił (military prison), Sremski Mitrovica, Leskovac, Vranje, ZajÖar, Belgrade, and Prokupje.
APPENDIX B
Penal Code of the Republic of Serbia
Article 136 -- Assembling for the purposes of hostile activities Whoever organizes a conspiracy, gang, group, or another association of persons for purposes of committing felonies from Art. 114 to 119 paragraph 2, Art. 120 to 123, Art. 125 to 127 and Art. 132 of this statute will be punished by a prison sentence of one to ten years. Whoever becomes a member of an association from paragraph 1 of this article, will be punished by a prison sentence from six months to five years. A perpetrator from paragraph 1 of this article who, by the means of revealing the association or by any other means prevents executing of crimes foreseen in the paragraph 1 of this article, will be punished by the prison sentence of up to three years, or could be released. A member of association from paragraph 2 of this article who reveals the association before he/she committed a felony for that association or as its member, will be punished by the prison sentence of up to one year, or could be released.
Article 125 -- Terrorism Whoever for the purposes of endangering the constitutional structure or safety of FRY sets off an explosion or a fire or undertakes another generally dangerous deed or act of violence which provokes a feeling of insecurity among the citizens, will be punished by a prison sentence of at least three years.
Human Rights Watch 29 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This report was researched by Fred Abrahams and Peter Bouckaert, researchers at Human Rights Watch, and was written by Mr. Abrahams. Jeri Laber, Senior Advisor to Human Rights Watch, and Holly Cartner, Executive Director of the Europe and Central Asia Division, edited the report. The legal section was edited by Joanne Mariner, Program Council at Human Rights Watch. The recommendations were edited by Elizabeth Andersen, Advocacy Director for the Europe and Central Asia Division. Invaluable production assistance was provided by Alexandra Perina and Alex Frangos, associates in the Europe and Central Asia Division, Fitzroy Hepkins, production manager, and Patrick Minges, publications director.
Human Rights Watch Europe and Central Asia Division
Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world.
We stand with victims and activists to bring offenders to justice, to prevent discrimination, to uphold political freedom and to protect people from inhumane conduct in wartime.
We investigate and expose human rights violations and hold abusers accountable.
We challenge governments and those holding power to end abusive practices and respect international human rights law.
We enlist the public and the international community to support the cause of human rights for all.
The staff includes Kenneth Roth, executive director; Michele Alexander, development director; Reed Brody, advocacy director; Carroll Bogert, communications director; Cynthia Brown, program director; Barbara Guglielmo, finance and administration director; Jeri Laber, special advisor; Lotte Leicht, Brussels office director; Patrick Minges, publications director; Susan Osnos, associate director; Jemera Rone, counsel; Wilder Tayler, general counsel; and Joanna Weschler, United Nations representative. Jonathan Fanton is the chair of the board. Robert L. Bernstein is the founding chair.
Its Europe and Central Asia division was established in 1978 to monitor and promote domestic and international compliance with the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki Accords. It is affiliated with the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, which is based in Vienna, Austria. Holly Cartner is the executive director; Rachel Denber is the deputy director; Elizabeth Andersen is the advocacy director; Fred Abrahams, Cassandra Cavanaugh, Julia Hall, Malcolm Hawkes, André Lommen, and Diane Paul are research associates; Diederik Lohman is the Moscow office director, Alexander Petrov is the assistant Moscow office director; Pamela Gomez is the Caucasus office director; Marie Struthers is the Dushanbe office director; Acacia Shields is coordinator for Central Asia/Caucasus; and Liudmila Belova, Alex Frangos, Alexandra Perina, and Josh Sherwin are associates. Peter Osnos is the chair of the advisory committee and Alice Henkin is vice chair.
Web Site Address: http://www.hrw.org Listserv address: To subscribe to the list, send an e-mail message to [email protected] with Asubscribe hrw-news@ in the body of the message (leave the subject line blank).
Human Rights Watch 30 Vol. 10, No. 10, (D)