Kosovo Police prevent public observance of Christmas Eve and harass Orthodox Serbs ahead of Christmas

The Kosovo Police prevented an attempt to publicly observe Christmas Eve, on the eve of one of the two greatest Christian holidays celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. As they themselves stated, acting on orders from Pristina, they harassed Orthodox Serbs in Kosovo.

In North Mitrovica, members of the Kosovo Police confiscated a banner reading “Peace of God, Christ Is Born,” which representatives of the Serb List attempted to display in the city center, and demanded that Mayor Milan Radojevic report immediately to the police station.

After a conversation that lasted more than an hour, during which police officers emphasized that they had orders not to allow the banner to be displayed, more than 30 police officers seized the banner and took it to the police station.

As Mayor of North Mitrovica, Radojevic had decided that, ahead of Christmas, a banner with the traditional greeting “Peace of God, Christ Is Born” should be placed in the city center. Speaking to Kosovo Online after the police interview, he said he had received a citation for failure to comply with a police order and that he had not been given any explanation for the confiscation of the banner.

“In order for the citizens of our city to know what this is about, we as a party wanted to wish our citizens and all believers a happy upcoming Christmas and intended to place a Badnjak with an inscription and the peaceful message ‘Peace of God, Christ Is Born.’ A legal and legitimate decision was adopted by the municipality and by me as mayor, signed, and fully in accordance with the law.

However, the police demanded that the banner be removed,” Radojevic said.

Alongside Radojevic, during talks with the police, Serb List members Igor Simic, Ivan Zaporozac, and Nemanja Bisevac demanded that the police explain which law they had violated and why the placement of the banner was being prohibited. The only response they received was that the police had orders that the banner must not be displayed.

Radojevic emphasized that Kosovo police officers provided no explanation whatsoever for the demand to remove the banner.

“We asked them to clearly and explicitly tell us which article of the law we were violating. They had no answer to that, but kept repeating that they had such orders from Pristina,” the mayor added.

Radojevic said that members of the Serb List refused to take down the banner because no law had been violated.

“We did nothing wrong. The police acted in their own way,” he said.

Orthodox believers in Gracanica also faced harassment by the Kosovo Police.

Specifically, the Kosovo Police harassed a group of Serbs from Dobrotin at the entrance to Gracanica as they were returning from cutting a Badnjak.

Goran Gudzic told Kosovo Online that the police harassed them because of the inscription on a T-shirt reading “Come, my son, cross yourself and say ‘Christ Is Born,’” stressing that this was a pure provocation.

According to Gudzic, Albanian police officers from the Gracanica station first made them remove and confiscated the T-shirts with church motifs, and then returned them later.

“When we were returning from cutting the Badnjak from the direction of Lake Gracanica, at the entrance to Gracanica we were stopped by the Kosovo Police. They held us for about half an hour and forced us to take off T-shirts bearing the inscription ‘Christ Is Born.’ About half an hour later they returned our documents and let us go home normally,” Gudzic said.

He added that there was nothing offensive that could have provoked the police.

“This is pure provocation on today’s holiday. It would be understandable if something offensive were involved, but there were no offensive symbols. It was only because it said ‘Christ Is Born’ and showed an image of the Temple of Saint Sava on the T-shirt,” Gudzic said.

Attacks and intimidation of Serbs during religious holidays have not occurred for the first time in Kosovo. Three years have passed since the shooting of boys Stefan and Milos Stojanovic on Christmas Eve in 2023 in Gotovusa. While they were returning from cutting a Badnjak, they were shot at from a moving vehicle by a member of the Kosovo Security Force, Azem Kurtaj. He wounded both boys, one in the hand and the other in the shoulder area. Court proceedings against Azem Kurtaj are ongoing, and the representative of one of the injured parties, attorney Veljko D. Radic, expects a verdict later this year.