An UNMIK regulation in February effectively withdrew the jurisdiction of the Ombudsperson’s Office over UNMIK. The Human Rights Advisory Panel, proposed as an alternative mechanism on 23 March, failed to provide an impartial body which would guarantee access to redress and reparations for people whose rights had been violated by UNMIK. It had not been constituted by the end of 2006. Recommendations to strengthen protection for minorities by the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, made public in March, were not implemented. The UN Human Rights Committee criticized the lack of human rights protection in Kosovofollowing consideration of an UNMIK report in July. In November the European Court of Human Rights considered the admissibility of a case against French members of the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) brought by the father of a 12-year-old boy killed in May 2000 by an unexploded cluster bomb that the troops had failed to detonate or mark. His younger son was severely injured.

Inter-ethnic violence

Impunity continued for the majority of perpetrators of ethnically motivated attacks. Most attacks involved the stoning of buses carrying Serb passengers by Albanian youths. In some cases, grenades or other explosive devices were thrown at buses or houses, and Orthodox churches were looted and vandalized. Three predominantly Serbian municipalities declared a “state of emergency” on 2 June following attacks they considered ethnically motivated, and announced a boycott of the UNMIK police and the Kosovo Police Service (KPS). Additional international police were deployed and ethnic Albanian KPS officers withdrawn.

• On 1 June, a Serbian youth was shot dead on the road between Zvečan/Zveçan and Žitkovac/Zhitkoc.
• On 20 June, a 68-year-old Serbian man who had returned the previous year to Klinë/a was reportedly shot dead in his own house.
• In June, two Romani families reportedly left the village of Zhiti/Žitinje after an incident in which an ethnic Albanian was later arrested.

War crimes trials

Impunity for war crimes against Serbs and other minorities continued.

• On 11 August former KLA member Selim Krasniqi and two others were convicted before an international panel of judges at Gnjilanë/Gjilan District Court of the abduction and ill-treatment at a KLA camp in 1998 of ethnic Albanians suspected of collaborating with the Serb authorities. They were sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment. A visit to Selim Krasniqi in prison by Prime Minister Agim Çeku provoked an outcry. UNMIK police failed to conduct investigations into outstanding cases of abducted members of minority communities.
• On 13 October the bodies of 29 Serbs and other non-Albanians exhumed in Kosovo were handed over to the Serbian authorities and to families for burial in Belgrade.

Excessive force by police

• On 25 May, 33 women, 20 children and three men required treatment for exposure to tear gas and other injuries after UNMIK police beat people and used tear gas in the village of Krusha e Vogël/Mala Kruša. Women had surrounded a convoy of armoured UNMIK vehicles escorting defence lawyers for Dragoljub Ojdanić, indicted by the Tribunal with responsibility for the murder of over 100 men and boys in the village in 1999. An UNMIK inquiry found that the police had used reasonable force, but acknowledged that the incident could have been avoided with adequate preparation.
• On a number of occasions, UNMIK and KPS officers used excessive force in peaceful demonstrations against UNMIK and the Kosovo status talks by members of the non-governmental Vetëvendosje! (Self Determination!) organization.
• On 23 August, 15 people were reportedly ill-treated following arrest at Priština police station. The Acting Ombudsperson asked the prosecutor to open an investigation in the case of one man whose arm and nose were broken and eyes injured.
• On 6 December the commander of Peja/Peć KPS and two KPS officers were suspended following a detainee’s death in custody.

Discrimination

• Most Romani, Ashkali and Egyptian families living on lead-contaminated sites near Mitrovicë/a voluntarily moved to a former military camp at Osterode at the beginning of 2006. Some Roma remained at one site until it was destroyed by fire. There was a lack of meaningful consultation with the communities before relocation and on the rebuilding of their former homes in the Romani neighbourhood of south Mitrovicë/a. Some of the community returned to newly built houses in December. In February the European Court of Human Rights decided it was not competent to rule on a petition by the communities that their economic and social rights had been violated, on the grounds that UNMIK was not a party to the European Convention on Human Rights.
• In early 2006, a senior KPS officer was reportedly removed from his post and other officers given training after a complaint to the UNMIK police commissioner by two gay men. After being assaulted on 31 December 2005 in a village outside Priština, they had been taken to hospital by KPS officers and asked to file a complaint, but were later subjected to insulting and degrading abuse when their sexual orientation was discovered. Officers told them, incorrectly, that homosexuality was unlawful in Kosovo.

Refugee returns

The rate of return of people displaced by the conflict in Kosovo remained low, although it was reported in June that some 400 Serbs had agreed to return to Babush village near Ferizaj/Uroševac. Those forcibly returned to Kosovo from EU member states were rarely provided with support and assistance by the authorities.

Violence against women

Up to three cases a day of domestic violence were reported by the UNMIK police. The Ministry of Justice and Social Welfare agreed in July to provide funding for the women’s shelter in Gjakova/Ðakovica, and promised financial support for other shelters. Trafficking for the purposes of forced prostitution continued to be widespread. Reportedly, 45 criminal proceedings related to trafficking were taking place in
July. Little progress was made in implementing the Kosovo Action Plan of Trafficking, published in 2005.

AI country reports/visits

Reports

• Europe and Central Asia: Summary of Amnesty International’s concerns in the region, January-June
• 2006 (AI Index: EUR 01/017/2006)
• Kosovo/Kosova (Serbia): Human rights protection in post-status Kosovo/Kosova – Amnesty International’s recommendations relating to talks on the final status of
• Kosovo/Kosova (AI Index: EUR 70/008/2006)
• Kosovo (Serbia and Montenegro): United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) – Conclusions of the Human Rights Committee, 86th Session, July 2006 (AI Index: EUR 70/011/2006)
• Kosovo (Serbia): The UN in Kosovo – a legacy of impunity (AI Index: EUR 70/015/2006)6)

Visit
AI delegates visited Kosovo in April.