Integra, a Kosovo- based NGO mainly dealing with human rights and transitional justice accused the public broadcaster, Radio Kosovo for censorship towards broadcasting of audio dramas based on the stories of families of wartime missing persons.
According to Integra, the second episode based on the story of a Serbian woman from Shterpce whose husband was missing following the war was censured by Radio Kosovo who decided not to rerun the episode as agreed.
In a reaction, Integra said they called an urgent meeting with the management of Radio Kosova, “who, angrily and nervously said that they do not agree to broadcast content based on the stories of families of non- Albanian victims”.
Integra, forumZFD program in Kosovo and the Missing Persons Resource Centre published ‘Living with memories of the missing’ a memory book telling the stories of 10 families with around 33 members missing from the Kosovo war.
Later, the stories were worked in a cycle of ten audio dramas with the same title.
Ernest Luma, the director of Radio Kosova told BIRN that they were concerned that the episode could be seen as interference in an ongoing legal case because it mentioned: “slanderous things that have been proven wrong”.
The second episode of “Living with memories of the missing” is a story told by a Kosovo Serbian woman, Olga which talks about her struggles after her husband went missing in 1999.
She mentions “the yellow house in Albania”, which is also mentioned in Dick Marty’s report claiming it was a place where Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) members kept prisoners whose organs were allegedly removed.
Based on these allegations, the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in the Hague was established, where high KLA officials are facing war crime indictments, including ex- President Hashim Thaci.
“The decision to censor audio dramas based on the stories of families of the wartime missing, caught us with shock and concern, letting us know that the ethnocentric public discourse in Kosovo continues to be nurtured and maintained, where a one-directional and politicized narrative dominates,” the reaction from Integra says.
It adds that as a public institution, Radio Kosovo violated the basic rights of representatives of the civilian victims of war “denying them the right to express, the right to know and the right of participating in building the collective memory”.
The Humanitarian Law Center in Kosovo, Youth Initiative for Human Rights, Dokufest and many other civil society organizations supported Integra on the issue.
