Impunity for crimes targeting journalists in Kosovo

These crimes happened between 1998 and 200, and no one has been brought to justice, the Council of Europe (CoE) has stated on its website.

During the Annual Meeting of the European Federation of Journalists which took place on 6 June 2018 in Lisbon, a resolution was adopted by the General Assembly calling for prompt and effective investigations of the unresolved crimes against 14 Albanian and Serbian journalists in Kosovo and calling on the Serbian and Kosovo authorities to step up co-operation in the investigation of these cases, the CoE added.

The resolution was adopted following a joint motion of the Association of Journalists of Serbia, Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia, Association of Journalists of Kosovo and Journalists' Union of Serbia.

The resolution called for renewed efforts to investigate and bring perpetrators before to justice for the murder and kidnapping of journalists, as well as to provide compensation for their families, for the following cases:

- the kidnapping of Djuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenic of Radio Pristina who disappeared during assignment on a road near Orahovac on the 21 August 1998;

- the murder of Afrim Maliqi, journalist in Pristina on the 2 December 1998;

- the murder of Enver Maloku in Pristina on the 11th of January 1999;

- the disappearance of Ljubomir Knezevic, correspondent of the national daily "Politika" and journalist of "Jedinstvo" from Pristina, who went missing in Vuitrn/Vushtrri on 6 May 1999;

- the kidnapping of Milo Buljevic, worker of Radio-Television Pristina in Pristina on 25 June 1999;

- the murder of Aleksandar Simovic, journalist of Media Action International in Pristina on 21 August 1999;

- the...