Religion in Pristina

View of the Serbian Orthodox Church at Pristina University campus. Photo: Denis Sllovinja/BIRN

The Diocese of Raska- Prizren, which covers Kosovo, said the ban was made without any legal basis, "continuing serious violations of the religious rights and freedoms of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo".

"It was a day for conscience and responsibility," Termkolli told BIRN.

Kosovo's autonomy as part of the Yugoslav federation was granted in 1974 under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, giving it almost the same rights as Yugoslavia's six republics. Fifteen years later, this was being reversed.

This was stated by on Friday by the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Maria Zakharova.

This took place Friday's session of the Serbian government.

This decision of Pristina causes great concern and represents a gross violation of international law, first and foremost of UN Security Council Resolution 1244, the government announced.

The Serbian president was addressing an unscheduled press conference late on Monday when he said that he was "bringing bad news" and that even after (EU Commissioner) Johannes Hahn's trip to Pristina, "the Albanians would not even hear about abolishing the taxes (on goods from central Serbia)."

Leading politicians in Pristina and Belgrade condemned an attack on two buses carrying Serb pilgrims to an Orthodox Christian monastery in eastern Kosovo.

People marched through the main square of Kosovo’s capital Pristina on the International Day of the Disappeared to commemorate the people who are still missing from the 1998-99 war.

The Kosovo Appeals Court granted the Serbian Orthodox Church land ownership rights to a church that has been a source of dispute since the 1990s, rejecting an appeal from the University of Pristina.

The Special Prosecution asked police to interview people in Pristina who made allegations that Kosovo’s new Serb agriculture minister Nenad Rikalo tortured Albanians during the war - a claim he denies.

The Pristina authorities exhumed the body of an unidentified person in an Albanian village near the border with Kosovo, believed to have been buried there during the war 1999.