The abolishment of Cyrillic script in Kosovo - The Law on the Use of Languages is dead letter on paper

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti stated at the UN Security Council meeting that the Serbian language was an official language throughout the territory of Kosovo and was used equally alongside Albanian in all institutions, including the Prime Minister's office. However, Kosovo Online interlocutors claim that the Law on the Use of Languages is merely a dead letter on paper, and many Serbs express fear even when saying "good afternoon", while Cyrillic script is virtually nonexistent in institutions. The law was adopted by the Assembly in 2007, but even today, they emphasize, it is most violated by those who enacted it.

Prime Minister Kurti recently stated in an interview with the Dutch newspaper "Trouw" that the Serbian language was an official language throughout Kosovo and at all levels of government, boasting that he spoke Serbian "more than all his predecessors combined". He reiterated the same statement last night at the UN Security Council meeting.

The actual situation was attempted to be explained by the Language Commissioner Slavisa Mladenovic last week at the annual award ceremony for the "Best Practices in Implementing the Law on the Use of Languages".

For the fifth consecutive year, the Office of the Language Commissioner of Kosovo, in cooperation with the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, awards prizes and awards to the most successful institutions, individuals, and NGOs in promoting official multilingualism in Kosovo. Mladenovic stated on that occasion that, although this event was intended for praise, there was not much to praise because the vast majority of institutions did not implement the Law on the Use of Languages.

"Many previous award winners have significantly worsened their performance over the past year or two. Personally, I am even ashamed of the fact that ministries that were once the best are now often the target of criticism from the media, the international community, and the NGO sector, and despite our recommendations and appeals, they do not improve their performance," Mladenovic said.

Journalist and writer Zivojin Rakocevic explained for Kosovo Online how the Serbs living in Kosovo truly felt.

"Not a single one of us here goes a week without wondering, 'Can I say something in my Serbian mother tongue now?' If you go to any of our enclaves and meet a high school student or a child, and say a simple 'good afternoon', there are a few unnatural moments before they respond with 'good afternoon' to you. And what lies in those few moments? That child is checking who you are, that child is checking if they can respond to you, that child has learned instinctive caution in using their mother tongue," Rakocevic explained.

He claims that the Law on the Use of Languages is absolutely not respected, with numerous examples.

"A police officer at a crossing, anywhere, asks you and tells you, 'Why don't you speak Albanian?' and you pay taxes for that police officer to say that simple 'good afteroon'. He even went to some schools, which are established according to international principles, and he cannot get a job until he says, for example, 'good afternoon' in the official language or basic things, but this is brutally not enforced. Try going to Vucitrn, Glogovac, Kacanik, Pristina..., anywhere. It is simply a fact that your native language, your Serbian language, is a trigger for your unhappiness, and 25 years after the conflict, it is an alarm after which you are ejected from life. You enter an institution and say 'good afternoon' or ask for something in your mother tongue, or call when they turn off the electricity, as is done in Osojane and returnee villages. As soon as they hear you speaking your native Serbian language, there is immediately the phone receiver, immediately there is a barrier, and immediately there is an obstacle. This society is not prepared for others, this society is not prepared for laws that are written and exist only formally on paper and in the Constitution, serving only as a cover, and their perfection is as great as the repression towards us," Rakocevic said.

"Although complaints about the violation of the Law on the Use of Languages are present, institutions are unwilling to solve this problem," Rakocevic claims.

"We constantly repeat, especially the media community and people from the cultural sphere, that there is no language, that the most common announcements are that these institutions do not meet basic standards and norms. We simply cannot get beyond that because this is a space where heads were lost in most cases due to language use. This is a space where language use was charged 100 Deutsche Marks in Pec, and up to 30 Deutsche Marks in Kamenica... People would listen to which language you spoke. This has now become instinct, it has become a way of life, for 25 years you reflexively observe who speaks which language," Rakocevic explains.

"It has become 'normal' for the Serbs", he emphasizes, to wherever they are, listen to which language is spoken.

"There are some legal norms, there are language commissioners, but, imagine, what can he do? Who has been punished, where is that administration? And those translations we receive, it's a humiliation of the language, it's the Serbian language 'Albanianized'. Look at the names of places, look at the titles, look at all that force that is simply inertia, that grinds, and the peak of discrimination is the moment when your language rebels within you and says, 'How is it possible that you, who speak me, treat me like this, how is it possible that I, as your language, may become your perhaps, at one point, greatest enemy'. These are difficult rebellions within us, these are tough psychological states. It's not easy to survive, people cope in different ways, and they stay silent," Rakocevic says.

Silence, he explains, has become normal when Serbs find themselves in predominantly Albanian environments and public places in Kosovo.

"People in transport, officials of the international community who travel by public transport from Pristina to some of our places, are as silent as a grave and dare not say anything. We still don't use public transport. Why? Because your language will betray you and you will get into trouble with your language and you don't want to face that humiliation at all. What has happened to us in these 25 years, but somewhere at the core, and within the circle of evil surrounding us, that feeling that your language is your enemy and that you must not speak it and use it properly is the very peak of discrimination," Rakocevic claims.

He explains that language is not learned to avoid repression and to keep one's head on their shoulders.

"I don't know a word of German, but nobody harasses me because I don't speak German at the airport or somewhere in a store, or museum in Austria, I don't know German and, on the contrary, everyone makes an effort to help me and do something in that regard, which is a friendly gesture. Here, language is the trigger. On the other hand, language is not learned to avoid repression, and you don't learn a language and don't know a language to stay alive. If I have to do that, then I will never learn that language, and that is the resistance," he emphasizes.

He emphasizes that learning a language cannot be equated with obligation.

"No, we don't have to know the Albanian language, the Serbian language is a constitutive language of this area. Every stone built into the cities of Kosovo and Metohija is built, among others, with the Serbian language, and in the Serbian language, not to mention all the other things, so, where this language has reached its great achievements, where it has developed, where it has lived, no one can tell you that you have to know the language so that the policeman won't harass you, so that the customs officer won't treat you like this, so that officials won't discriminate against you. That is contrary to every normal relationship in communication, that is contrary to the modern world, but all this is far from the modern world," Rakocevic concluded.

That the Law on the Use of Languages in Kosovo is not respected even in institutions that enact laws, nor in those that enforce them like courts, was assessed by lawyer Jovana Filipovic for Kosovo Online. She emphasizes that there are often delays and postponements of hearings because documents are not translated into Serbian or there are delays in translation.

The Law on the Use of Languages in Kosovo sounds good in theory, claims Filipovic, but in practice, that is not the case.

"Situations, where parties address in their native language, are not rare at all, regardless of whether they are Serbs or members of other non-majority communities, and then decisions of state bodies or courts are received only in the Albanian language. This, of course, affects the efficiency of proceedings. Parties incur unnecessary costs because they resend requests to have the same decision translated. In this sense, many parties do not even know that they have the right to request a translation of their decisions but resort to self-translation. Whether it's through Google or someone who knows the Albanian language, they find ways to cope in any possible way, but this, of course, is not right and should not be the case, but rather according to the letter of the law - if a party has addressed in one language, the response of that institution should be in the same language," Filipovic says.

She emphasizes that it often happens that case files are not translated into Serbian, which becomes a problem especially in serious criminal cases, leading to delays in hearings.

"For example, we have a situation in a very important case that has been ongoing for five years before a court in Pristina, where for the past year we haven't received a single transcript, and since the beginning of the proceedings, we have received only four translations. We cannot present our closing arguments in that case until we receive all the case files, and naturally, each subsequent hearing will be postponed precisely for this reason," Filipovic states.

Disregarding language rights claims the lawyer, can lead to the annulment of the first-instance court decision.

"Parties who are dissatisfied and believe that the law is being violated to their detriment certainly have the right to appeal to the ombudsman and language commissioner in Pristina, and I believe that only the language commissioner, in this case, could effectively respond, especially in a situation where penalties are imposed on all institutions that do not apply the law as prescribed. What I know is that no penalties have been imposed, and I believe that would lead to the enforcement of the law," Filipovic said.

To achieve better enforcement of the Law on the Use of Languages, she adds, it would be possible if compliance with legal provisions requiring the employment of members of non-majority communities in certain positions were to be implemented.

"This would also reduce the workload for translators who are lacking in all institutions," Filipovic concluded.

Journalist Vladimir Radomirovic told Kosovo Online that by denying the right to use their mother tongue, the persecution of every nation began.

"This is an attempt at the forced assimilation of the Serbs, to make them some kind of Kosovars, to strip them of their identity, and it's terrible that the international community and Western human rights organizations are not reacting to this issue. We know what has happened to the Serbian language in the past and how our people managed to survive, but this situation is such that everyone is turning a blind eye to this persecution. The fate of the Serbs is very difficult. I believe that both Serbia and all our partners must speak out and save what can be saved at this moment," Radomirovic said.

Reacting to Albin Kurti's statement that the Law on the Use of Languages was respected at all levels, our interlocutor says that the West turning a blind eye allows him that.

"Kurti can speak to foreign media and fabricate whatever he wants. Thus, Kosovo has been progressing for years in terms of respecting human rights, fighting corruption, and media freedom... even though there is evidence that all these freedoms are endangered, especially the freedom of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, but Western organizations dealing with these issues ignore all of it," he says, noting that the Serbian language is almost nonexistent in Pristina institutions.

"Where it supposedly exists, it's about the Latin script and some corrupted Serbian language, and we know what the situation was like before the unilateral declaration of independence, it was Cyrillic, and the language was nurtured. How and why it came to this and why our state did not react, is a question we all need to seek an answer to and simply fight now for the Serbs to have basic rights, and it's difficult to talk about some advanced rights under this regime in Kosovo and Metohija," Radomirovic believes.