How Serbia is reducing the number of Albanians in Preševo

The Albanian minority in the south of Serbia is under pressure. The country's authorities are erasing Albanians who are abroad from the population registers. Thousands of them are thus remaining stateless.

When Safet Demiri, in August 2019, wanted to renew the registration of his business cars, he was told: "You are no longer in the address register." Demiri was born in Medvedja (Serbia) and his family has been living there for 200 years. Demiri has several properties in his native country, including a tourist hotel and a telecommunications company. But he also lives in Vienna, Austria, where he has a company construction. Since 2019, he has been denied the right to an address in Medvegja. "How can I take care of my businesses, without an address?" Demiri told the clerk. He got a shrug in response.

The 46-year-old had to find a temporary solution and made the registration in the name of his son. He tried to claim his right by contesting the decision in the Administrative Court of Nis, but without success. "Your residence is outside the country, so deletion from the register was right" - was the official reasoning. "We have nothing to do," they told him afterwards in court, "it's a decision from above."

Deregistration affects almost only Albanians

The reason for Demir's deregistration is that he is Albanian, says researcher Flora Ferati-Sachsenmaier from the University of Göttingen. She herself is from Medveja and in 2023 she published a research for the Max-Planck Institute. He discovered the topic quite by accident, in 2016, when he was in Medvegja for another project. "Every second Albanian I spoke to told me 'we are being deregistered,'" Ferati recalled to DW. In the study, she would discover that the deregistration was done systematically.

Flora Ferati-Sachsenmaier

Serbian authorities call this deregistration "passivization". "If they find that someone no longer lives at the registered address, the person is deleted from the address register," explains Ferati. But this also affects people who are on vacation or short trips abroad. Re-registration is usually not possible. Deletion has serious consequences. They cannot access public services, or receive health services.

Reducing the number of Albanians as a goal

The aim is to reduce the number of Albanians in South Serbia. The figures of the Max-Planck study speak for themselves: "While in the Preševo ??Valley the number of passivized addresses includes almost 10 percent of the population, in other parts of Serbia the number of passivizations affects much less than one percent of the inhabitants of the municipalities, ” says Ferati-Sachsenmaier.

Deregistration is a problem especially for Albanians living in Kosovo, says Enver Haziri, who runs an office in Gjilan that deals exclusively with the needs of Albanians in the Presheva Valley. Most of them were chased out of their villages in June 1999 when Serbian forces, driven back by NATO forces, unleashed violence on the Albanian minority in southern Serbia.

Enver Haziri

In Kosovo, these persecuted are welcome morally, but they do not have any kind of official document, says Haziri. Due to passivation, they become virtually stateless and have no opportunity to participate in the social life of either Serbia or Kosovo. Only the current Kurti government has started to take the fate of the minority seriously and has decided to provide them with residence permits.

Albanians of Serbia - a marginalized minority

The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights has called the passivation of addresses "ethnic cleansing by administrative methods". In the Preshevo Valley, which includes the municipalities of Medvegja, Preshevo and Bujanoc, nearly 60,000 Albanians live. Although they make up the majority of the population and Serbia has signed the conventions of the Council of Europe on national minorities, Albanians are systematically marginalized, says Shaip Kamberi, the only Albanian deputy in the Serbian Parliament public institutions.????

But Kamberi told DW that the deactivation of addresses is one of Serbia's discriminatory measures against Albanians: "We are not allowed to integrate into public life, often investors are even prevented from investing in Preševo," said Kamberi. An obstacle for Albanians and the ever-increasing militarization of the area. Serbia has set up 48 military bases on the border with Kosovo, most of them in the Presheva region.

Berlin is worried

Shaip Kamberi was in Berlin some time ago to sensitize the German government and parliamentarians on this issue. German politician Knut Abraham of the CDU/CSU told DW that he is concerned and that he expects "the embassies of the EU states in Belgrade to pay more attention to this issue and talk to minority representatives". Thomas Hacker, from the liberal party, FDP, told DW that the issue of the Albanian minority in Serbia deserves more international attention. "The focus is currently on the Pristina-Belgrade dialogue, other equally important topics are unfortunately overshadowed. The process of passivation looks like a process of slow removal of rights." The German Ministry of Foreign Affairs also appealed to all those responsible to act in accordance with their obligations and behave in a more transparent and fair manner.

Shaip Kamberi

Unsuccessful lawsuits

The Serbian government has in the past rejected accusations that passivation is a measure to discriminate against Albanians, according to a statement by the then Minister of Local Government Aleksandar Martinovic, in December 2023. DW has requested a current statement from the Ministry of the Interior of Serbia, but so far no answer has been received.

Demiri and several other Albanians meanwhile have taken their case to the Constitutional Court in Belgrade. They do not expect to win, so they are preparing to take the case to the International Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The chances that they will be given the right are high, but they do not believe that the decisions will change Serbia's policy towards the Albanian minority./ DW

flora ferati sachsenmaier nje shkencetare ne universitetin e gttingenit e ka hulumtuar fshirjen sistematike te shqiptareve nga regjistrat e popullsise ne serbi

enver haziri

shaip kamberi