Kosovo Government Issues Statement on LGBT Attacks

The Kosovo Ministry of European Intergration issued a statement on Saturday evening regarding the attacks on the LGBT community’s civil liberties and freedom of speech

 The Kosovo Government’s Ministry of European Integration issued the following statement in response to attacks against the magazine KOSOVO 2.0 on Saturday, December 15th:

[The Kosovo] Ministry of European Integration have followed with great interest the situation related to a protest of some extremists groups that have endangered public order and freedoms of assembly and expression of citizens of Kosovo.

We welcome the dedication of the Interior Ministry which has sent police forces to stop the incidents and attacks on private property and civic freedoms and we encourage more work on stopping the discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation We are thankful for the prompt reaction of Ombudserson of Kosovo and we invite all NGO’s and sports organizations to use only methods of civic debate when discussing social issues in Republic of Kosovo.

On this occasion we remind the public that Conclusions of the EU Commission oblige the Government to improve the situation related to freedom of speech and media freedoms as essential condition identified in the Feasibility Study.  The Ministry of European Integration and the Government of Kosovo is dedicated to respecting human rights and liberties as a principled stance of all institutions and political spectrum that supports Kosovo’s EU agenda.

Extremism of such kind is not a native product but imported from other societies and inspired from similar events in neighbouring countries.

Ministry of Integration would like to pledge for 2013 financial year support for organizations that defend human rights, media rights and opposition to discrimination of all Kosovo citizens. Kosovo will not be a terrain where the groups that breach rights of any minority will be tolerated. This basic promise is made based on our dedication to being to the family of European nations.”

Tanya L. Domi is the Deputy Editor of the New Civil Rights Movement blog.  She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and teaches human rights in East Central Europe and former Yugoslavia.  Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi was a nationally recognized LGBT civil rights activist who worked for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force during the campaign to lift the military ban in the early 1990s. Domi has also worked internationally in a dozen countries on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights and gender issues.  She is chair of the board of directors for GetEQUAL.  Domi is currently writing a book about the emerging LGBT human rights movement in the Western Balkans.