Serbian Nationalists Target Albanian Baker Over Cousin’s Gesture

Whatever the reason, on April 27, nationalists gathered in front of the bakery, shouted nationalistic slogans, played Serbian patriotic songs and put stickers reading "Kosovo is Serbia" on the windows.

Groups of them twice stormed into the bakery but were escorted out by police, who secured the premises.

The rightists then showed their anger by throwing pigs' heads at the bakery, and shouting hate messages.

[Most Albanians are Muslims, who are forbidden to eat pork, so the choice of a pig's head was no accident.]

The rightists showed their anger by throwing pigs' heads at the bakery, and shouting hate messages. Photo: BIRN

"I have been fighting all this chaos for few days since I found out about the picture. I also received terrible threats online," Gjuraj told BIRN.

He said he had reported the threats to the police on April 26.

For nationalists in Serbia, angered about the loss more than a decade ago of the former province of Kosovo - which is mainly inhabited by ethnic Albanians - the eagle gesture is seen as infuriating and insulting.

Last June, two Swiss footballers of Albanian nationality, Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri, outraged Serbian officials and the public by celebrating their goals against Serbia in the World Cup with eagle hand gestures. FIFA fined them for doing so.

Human rights activists and most opposition parties in Serbia have condemned the assaults on the bakery in Belgrade - but one right-wing MP, Srdjan Nogo, not only attended the affray but defended it s legitimate.

He claimed that local "citizens [had] stood up to the provocations of the Albanian owner of the bakery".

"It is time you went back where you came came," the head of the far-right Srbska Cast [Serbian...