With Serbia heading to parliamentary and presidential elections in April, the campaign is stepping up. But little attention is being paid to the 3,000 ethnic Albanian minority living in the southern Presevo Valley who have been illegally struck off the voting list.
For the last seven years, academic and researcher Flora Ferhati-Sachsenmeir has investigated and researched the so-called passivisation of ethnic Albanian who are Serbian citizens in the region.
Speaking to Exit, Ferhati, who was born and raised in the area, said that the Serbian government has undertaken a process to verify whether people are living at their addresses. If they are not, they are removed from voter lists and the civil registry.
The problem is that physical checks on addresses are not being carried out, and predominantly ethnic Albanians are being rendered effectively stateless, deprived of ID documents and unable to vote, buy property, get healthcare, or send their children to school.
Furthermore, those removed from the list are not being notified in writing, depriving them of the right to appeal and other forms of legal recourse.
“In 2015, I was researching in the area, and some of the families, activists and politicians I came across kept saying ‘they are deleting us, they are deleting us’. This got into my mind, and it always came in conjunction with the Ministry of the Interior in Serbia.”
Ferhati explained that residents said their addresses were being deleted, and they were being refused IDs and passports.
“So I started investigating. After all, how could it be legal that citizens of our country [Serbia] were being treated like this?” she said.
She continued that citizens reported being told, “No, you don’t live here, you live in Kosovo, we cannot recognise you”, and that this answer was being given predominantly to Albanians.
“It is important to understand that they are abusing the law. Every country in the world has a residency law, but there is no country in Europe that abuses the law of residence to target a specific group to change the ethnic composition.”
According to Ferhati-Sachsenmeir’s research and the collected testimonies of residents, the authorities, under cover of the residence law, claimed to be sending people to verify residences. These individuals would say that the residents could not be found at their address, and a notification would be sent to the Electoral Commission. Entire families are then wiped off the electoral lists, and with no written decisions issued, there is no route for appeal.
“Let me give you an example. In the municipality of Megjvia, out of 500 passivised individuals, only 20- were given a written decision. In Serbian Cyrillic, when the law allows it to be in Albanian.”
“They know what they are doing is not constitutional so by not issuing a written document, they are hiding the traces,” Ferhati adds.
In terms of the upcoming elections, the 3860 people missing from the electoral register is enough to significantly impact the outcome of the vote in a region with just 7500 people.
“President Vucic gave an interview in July 2021, saying there are only 300 Albanians left in the region,” Ferhati said, noting that the authorities have blocked requests for information on ethnic make up, population, and voting lists. But through her work, Ferhati has been able to acquire the evidence elsewhere.
“Some responsible local councillors kept track, and we have a list that tells us exactly who has been removed from the voter list”, she said.
Furthermore, she notes that in 2012, the ruling party had 12.5% of the votes in the area, but by 2019 this has increased to 65%.
But it is not just the violation of the constitution and international law that concerns Ferhati, it is the humanitarian impact as well.
“An Albanian family in Presevo Valley lives in precarious positions. They are minorities, they are being pushed away from the public sector. They are finding themselves in an impossible situation with documents, they are being forced to leave,” she added.
Asides from the legal and humanitarian impact, Ferhati is frustrated by the lack of action by the international community. The EU, OSCE and various ambassadors have failed to give the situation adequate attention.
The OSCE even visited the region earlier this year, and failed to meet any local Albanian representatives.
“I can assure you I have talked to countless diplomats in Serbia, Brussels, and Germany where I live. My impression is there are two kinds of diplomats with this issue: ones that deliberately want to ignore that is happening, and those who do speak up.”
In terms of those that ignore the situation, Ferhati said they disputed the evidence she presented, denied the existence of administrative ethnic cleansing, and ask “impossible questions” as a way to derail her lobbying. Others, have refuted the findings of the Serbian Helsinki Committee which confirmed Ferhati’s findings, without giving countering evidence.
She adds she has requested assistance in setting up an independent commission but “there was zero willingness to help the Albanians”.
This is an example of “the double standards when it comes to the Balkans”, particularly in showing tolerance towards governments such as Serbia’s that the EU would never accept within its union.
“My impression is that the international community always reacts too late and only when they have to. When it comes to the ongoing depopulation campaign of Albanians in Serbia intending to change ethnic composition, they are unwilling to get involved unless necessary.”
She also noted the hypocrisy that while Albanians are being ethnically cleansed from the Presevo Valley, Albanians in Kosovo are being pressured to establish an Association of Serb Municipalities.
“It is embarrassing for the EU that this has gone on under their noses, these double standards. It is shocking,” she adds.
Ferhati also called out on the silence from the Albanian and Kosovo governments.
“It was difficult to get our own governments to listen to us, that is the Albanian, Serbian, and Kosovo governments. They just didn’t want to help. I wrote countless letters, but they never took concrete actions,” she said.
“You can say the international government didn’t do a lot, but what did the Albanian government do?”
So what does Ferhati want? The answer is simple.
“I think there is a need to sit at the table with confidence and speak, in Brussels and to ask ‘what is happening?’ We have good examples and evidence. There is no reason to hesitate in doing this,” she explains.
“We have voter lists; we can see how many people have been removed; we have their names. We have enough evidence for the European Court of Human Rights; this could be the next step.”
Meanwhile, the depopulation of the valley continues, and citizens continue being denied access to fundamental human rights, right under the nose of the international community.
