Nikolic: Arrests in Zubin Potok deepen fear among Serbs

Danijela Nikolic, Chair of the Serbian National Assembly’s Committee on Kosovo and Metohija, said that this morning’s arrests of nine Serbs in Zubin Potok were further deepening fear and uncertainty among the Serbian population and called on KFOR and EULEX to monitor respect for their rights and the lawfulness of the proceedings.

“This morning’s brutal raid by Kurti’s police in Zubin Potok is turning this manner of arrest, in the eyes of the Serbian population, into a judgment, suspicion into evidence, and a Serbian name into an indictment written in advance. If this is the ‘justice’ Kurti is offering Serbs, then it is some new legal discipline in which special police units are sent in first, families are awakened in fear, people are taken away, and the public is told that the evidence and details will be disclosed later,” Nikolic said in a statement.

The presumption of innocence is not merely an ornament in the law, she noted, stressing that everyone is considered innocent until proven guilty by a final court judgment.

“An arrest is not a judgment. An accusation is not evidence. Detention is not punishment. And belonging to a particular people can never be a substitute for individually established criminal responsibility. What is particularly concerning is that this is not an isolated incident. Since the end of July, Serbs have already been arrested in the Zubin Potok area on suspicion of war crimes, while local residents have spoken of fear and intimidation,” Nikolic recalled.

She said this legitimately raised the question of what consequences such operations had for the Serbian community, as repeated police raids and arrests created a sense of constant uncertainty and fear among families, calling into question their security and their ability to live peacefully in their homes.

“I believe that such practices constitute persecution and are part of a process aimed at pressuring Serbs, through fear and legal uncertainty, into leaving Kosovo and Metohija. This is something international representatives must not turn a blind eye to. I therefore ask them publicly: how many more Serbian families need to wake up to police officers at their doors before you react seriously? How many arrests, searches, detentions and departures of Serbs will it take before the question is asked whether the law is being applied equally to everyone?” Nikolic asked.

She said she expected KFOR and EULEX, within their respective mandates, to closely monitor the security situation, the conduct of the competent institutions and respect for all the rights of those arrested, stressing that the right to a defense, access to legal counsel, a fair trial and full application of the presumption of innocence must be guaranteed in particular.

“Because if the ‘rule of law’ is demonstrated to Serbs by having the police arrive before dawn, with explanations and evidence perhaps coming later, then the problem is no longer merely an individual criminal proceeding. The problem is the message being sent to an entire people. And today that message is: fear the next morning and the next knock on the door. Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija are not statistics that someone can reduce through arrests, pressure and fear. They are people with a right to a home, family, property, security and a future. They have the right to remain. They have the right to survive. And they have the right to justice—justice that begins with evidence and the law, not with police boots on their doorstep,” Nikolic concluded.

Kosovo Police arrested nine people in Zubin Potok early this morning on suspicion of committing a “war crime against the civilian population.”

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said the arrests represented the most insidious method of ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Kosovo and expressed his conviction that the world would once again remain silent.

The Office for Kosovo and Metohija also reacted, stating that mass arrests had become Pristina’s new method of retaliation against Serbs and that recent discoveries in Zubin Potok were being used as a pretext to stigmatize and target all remaining Serbs.

The Serbian List said that the arrest of nine Serbs in villages in the Ibarski Kolasin area represented a continuation of systematic pressure on the Serbian people in northern Kosovo and called for all rights of those arrested to be guaranteed, as well as for international missions to monitor the conduct of the police and judicial institutions.