With just days to the Serbian presidential, parliamentary and partial local elections, over 6020 citizens have found themselves removed from voter lists in a move activists and researchers claim is because they are ethnic Albanian.
The Presevo Valley in the south of Serbia is home to a large Albanian population, or at least it was.
According to years of research by an academic and former resident of the area, Flora Ferati-Sachsenmaier, ethnic Albanians have been systematically erased from voter lists, rendering them de facto stateless and unable to get or renew ID documents, benefit from education or healthcare, or even register their childrens’ birth.
“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,” Sachsenmaier, who was the first to sound the alarm over the situation, told Exit.
Data collected and processed by Sachsenmaier, based on historical voter lists, suggests that 4200 in the Municipality of Medvedja have been removed and a further 2000 in Bujanovac report being passivised.
With Serbia’s triple elections set to take place on Sunda (3 April), the removal of such a high number of ethnic Albanians from voter lists has the power to change the outcome of votes. For example, according to electoral results, the ruling party had just 12.5% of results in the area in 2012, but this increased to 65% in 2019.
Further data collated by Sachsenmaier show the decline in some villages of Presevo has seen a decrease in the Albanian population of between 41-71%. For example, the village of Sfrice has seen the number of ethnic Albanian voters decrease by 71.25% between 2012 and 2019, while in Sijarine, it is 70.64%.
Loopholes in the law
According to 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.
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.”
The researcher explained that at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, she conducted a study of 500 passivised Albanians of Medveja, only 20 were given a written decision. It was printed 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,” Sachsenmaier adds.
The alleged practice was dubbed “ethnic cleansing by administrative means” by the Helsinki Committee in Belgrade.
Sachsenmaier collected the testimonies of some of the passivised for her research.
“I suppose my permanent address was passivised before the last round of parliamentary elections…I learned I was passivised because they deleted me from the voter list without any prior notice or me knowing about it. The Serbian authorities took away one of my basic civil and political rights- the right to vote,” one resident, A.F stated.
He explained how he went to the local Ministry of the Interior office, but they refused to give him an official document. A.F described it as “humiliating” and “serious discrimination”.
As such, the resident said he has been unable to get a passport, travel abroad, vote, and purchase property.
“I suffer from a rare disease and am a wheelchair user. My doctors are in Austria and the US…as a result of the illegal passivisation…I do not have health insurance anymore, and I cannot travel abroad. I can no longer meet my doctors,” he said.
A.F died on 13 December 2020 without ID or passport. His family said they risked a bill of more than €10,000 because passivisation resulted in the removal of his health insurance. Only through significant pressure on the local authorities, was he issued a temporary medical insurance so the family could cover the costs.
A 75-year-old who wished to remain anonymous explained they were refused the reissuance of a passport. They fear that once their ID expires and they cannot get a new one, they will be unable to withdraw their pension.
“The legal processes have caused much distress, and I felt totally isolated as a human being,” they said.
Residents say that recourse has been futile. “I made several complaints and thought my Serbian lawyer. I made a complaint at the police station in Medvegje and in Leskovac. Each time, I received a negative answer. They refused to reactivate my address,” the resident said.
Other testimonies, seen by Exit, detail being denied the right to work, the ability to draw a pension, being refused any recourse, and, concerningly, the right to participate in democratic processes.
“Through passivisation, I was taken away the right to vote and the right to select my political representatives at the local and parliamentary/state level. Consequently, there is no one to represent my interests as a member of an autochthonous minority at the municipal and parliamentary assemblies,” another testimony reads.
Exit contacted the Ministry of the Interior in Serbia and the Central Electoral Commission, but no response was given at the time of publication.
The European Commission stated that they are aware of the reports of passivisation and are “monitoring” the situation.
“We are monitoring the situation in light of the commitments taken in the framework of the accession negotiations, particularly those related to the rights of persons belonging to national minorities,” a commission spokesperson said.
They added that “Serbia is required, within chapter 23 ‘Judiciary and Fundamental Rights, to implement its legal framework and dedicated action plan on minorities.”
Unfortunately, this does little to help those who will be unable to vote on 3 April.
