The Kosovo Police (KP) on July 7, implementing the decision of the Basic Court in Ferizaj, raided several locations in the municipality of Shtërpcë. According to the prosecutor of the case, the purpose of this KP action was to control some locations where illegal Serbian structures operate in Kosovo. During this action in the facilities of the illegal municipality of Shtërpcë, all the documents found there were confiscated. According to the same notification from the prosecutor of the case, electronic equipment and cameras, which were installed illegally from the same structures, were also seized. In the same announcement by the state prosecutor and the KP, it is confirmed that in this regular action by the institutions of the state of Kosovo, no one was arrested.
However, as in any other case, almost every action of the institutions of Kosovo that has to do with the establishment of law and order in some regions and municipalities of Kosovo, and where there are Serbian citizens, the reaction of the Serbian state is hysterical, unrestrained and accompanied by misinformation. This happened also in the case of the raid in Shtërpcë. The Government of Serbia through the so-called "Office for Kosovo" has called the action of the KP as an "attack and pressure on the Serbs." According to this office, the action was deliberately carried out on the day when the Serbs celebrated “Saint John.”
"The controls were carried in the Hertz TV building, the only Serbian-language TV station in Shtërpcë, where the cameras were removed from the light poles that were legally installed 10 years ago, and which no longer work, while the special forces also raided the elementary school in Shtërpcë", it is stated in the communique of this office.
The Serbian List also reacted to the action in Shtërpcë, calling it political and according to them this happened only because there happened to be a holiday in this municipality.
"The fact that the action was undertaken during a major holiday, Saint John, confirms that it is a purely political action by the institutions of Kosovo directed against the Serbian population in the municipality of Shtërpcë", says the reaction of the Serbian List.
This subject has also requested that the international institutions react claiming that the purpose behind this action is the attempt to remove the Serbs from Kosovo.
However, the Kosovo authorities have clarified that the action was directed against an illegal activity through which the movements of citizens were observed.
According to the prosecutor Rasim Maloku, these structures are illegal and against the legal and constitutional order of Kosovo and that the action is not directly related to the unauthorized constructions in Brezovica, but to some arrested people from Brezovica.
"The former mayor of the municipality Branislav Nikolic is also the coordinator of illegal structures and that these structures managed the security cameras that monitored the movements of citizens and public institutions of the Republic of Kosovo thereby forwarding this information to the security structures in Serbia," said Maloku.
Meanwhile, in December 2021, Radio Free Europe reported on Chinese cameras that are on the US blacklist and which entered Kosovo through Serbia. Through parallel structures in Kosovo, Serbia has purchased a surveillance system from the Chinese company "DAHUA." This monitoring system was brought in order to be placed in the 12 elementary schools of Kosovo where the Serbian community lives.
Therefore, as confirmed above, the entire action of the KP was a regular attempt to establish law and order in the parts where illegal structures had been operating unhindered for years, also using camera systems controlled from outside Kosovo.
*This article is published as part of the Western Balkans Regional Initiative against disinformation. “Western Balkans Anti-Disinformation Hub: exposing malign influences through watchdog journalism.”
