Kosovo Serbs Protest Arrests of Serbs Suspected of Attacking Journalists

Hundreds of local in Serb-majority nothern Kosovo, led by medical workers, marched from North Mitrovica to Zvecan - where workers from the Trepca mine joined them - in protest against recent arrests of people suspected of attacks against Kosovo journalists, Serbian-language Kosovo media outlet Kossev reported.

Staff of the Clinical Hospital Centre in the city in white coats, led by the director, Zlatan Elek, as well as the former mayor of Zvecan, also a doctor, Dragisa Milovic, were in the front rows.

Medics carried banners reading: "Stop [Kosovo PM Albin] Kurti's terror", "Who's next?" and: "All over the world doctors are heroes, but for Pristina, criminals".

Among the marchers were the leaders of the Belgrade-backed Serb party in Kosovo, Srpska Lista, Goran Rakic and Igor Simic.

"On behalf of the Serbian people, we have been appealing for peace for months, and that has not been there for a long time for the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, so the simple question is whether Kurti is really stronger than KFOR, the EU, the US, the Quint, the UN, or is someone still supporting this persecution of all Serbs," a Srpska Lista press release on Monday said.

At another protest in Leposavic, a Serb-majority muncipality in northern Kosovo, relatives of the recently arrested Serbs and representatives of the local government and civil society addressed a crowd. All of them demanded the release of all those arrested.

The mother of one of those arrested, N.V., from Leposavic, who the Kosovo authorities have accused of attacking journalists, addressed the crowd, saying that her son was not guilty, and he was at a protest on May 29 to peacefully express his dissatisfaction.

Earlier on Monday, Kosovo Police announced that an ethnic...