YUGOSLAVIA: PROMINENT KOSOVO ALBANIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST FLORA BROVINA IS FREED BY YUGOSLAV AUTHORITIES FROM A SERBIAN JAIL

Record ID: 566192

  • Title: YUGOSLAVIA: PROMINENT KOSOVO ALBANIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST FLORA BROVINA IS FREED BY YUGOSLAV AUTHORITIES FROM A SERBIAN JAIL
  • Date: 1st November 2000
  • Summary: MERDARE, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA (NOVEMBER 1, 2000) (REUTERS (A) - ACCESS ALL) (NIGHTSHOTS) 1. PAN: FLORA BROVINA'S SON, URANIK BROVINA WAITING AT BORDER BETWEEN KOSOVO AND SERBIA 0.05 2. SCU: SOUNDBITE: (English) URANIK BROVINA, SON: " April 20th, 1999 I was studying in the United States so I was not here and she was a hostage. And for a month we did not have any information about where she was taken or if she was killed or if she was a hostage. So that was a relief that one month after she was taken that we found out that she was in prison." 0.28 3. VARIOUS: BROVINA ARRIVING IN RED CROSS VEHICLE/ BROVINA GETTING OUT CAR AND EMBRACING SON AND CROWD APPLAUDING 1.28 4. SV: BRITISH SOLDIERS 1.33 5. MV: BROVINA GREETING CROWD AND KISSING GROUND 1.52 6. SV: SOUNDBITE (Albanian) FLORA BROVINA WALKING WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS SAYING SHE IS GLAD AND THAT SHE WILL FIGHT FOR OTHER PRISONERS 3.02 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 16th November 2000 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: MERDARE, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA
  • City:
  • Country: Yugoslavia
  • Reuters ID: LVAE4LHAN385F8ZUWK0MN9NAUIYY
  • Story Text: Yugoslav authorities on Wednesday (November 1) freed a
    prominent Kosovo Albanian activist jailed last year for 12
    years on terrorism charges in a trial condemned by the West
    and human rights organisations.



    The release of Flora Brovina, a doctor, human rights
    activist and poet, won immediate international praise for new
    Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica as a step towards
    reconciliation between Serbs and Kosovo's Albanians.

    Hundreds of wellwishers gave Brovina an emotional welcome
    when she crossed into Kosovo at the village of Merdare a few
    hours after leaving prison in the town of Pozarevac. She
    kissed the ground on returning to her homeland.

    Brovina was among hundreds of ethnic Albanians detained by
    Serb forces in Kosovo last year during the NATO bombing
    campaign to halt repressive policies in the province under
    Kostunica's autocratic predecessor Slobodan Milosevic.

    Like the other detainees, Brovina was taken to Serbia
    proper before NATO-led peacekeepers took de facto control of
    Kosovo. She was convicted of associating with separatist
    Albanian guerrillas during the bombing.

    "President Kostunica, who today ordered her release,
    should be congratulated in taking this crucial step towards
    healing the wounds that exist between Serb and Albanian
    communities," said Bernard Kouchner, who heads the U.N.

    mission in Kosovo.

    In a statement, Kouchner urged Kostunica to release other
    ethnic Albanian political prisoners in Serbia. "That would be
    justice, that would be a major stride toward a meaningful
    dialogue and a lasting peace," he said.

    Brovina waved to reporters standing outside the drab
    prison, but made no statement. She shook hands with a woman
    prison official before getting into the waiting International
    Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) vehicle with her belongings
    in a bag.

    Around 200 people, including many children as well as her
    husband and son and other relatives, welcomed her back to
    Kosovo on Wednesday evening, some waving Albanian flags.

    They chanted "Flora, Flora" and children carried a banner
    saying: "Welcome to Kosovo our mother." Brovina stepped out of
    the car, kissed the ground and said: "Free Kosovo."
    She told journalists that other ethnic Albanians held in
    Serb jails -- numbering more than 818 according to the ICRC --
    would soon also be released.

    A representative of the Helsinki Committee for Human
    Rights in Serbia said the release signalled a new attitude by
    Belgrade following the ousting last month of Milosevic -- the
    Yugoslav leader blamed by the West for a decade of war in the
    Balkans.

    "The release of Brovina is the first sign that the new
    government has a new way of dealing with Albanians," said
    Sonja Biserko outside the jail in Pozarevac.

    Barbara Davis, Belgrade representative of the U.N. High
    Commissioner for Human Rights, also welcomed the news. "Doctor
    Brovina should never have been detained in the first place,"
    she told Reuters.

    Brovina's conviction by a court in the southern Serbian
    town of Nis was greeted with outrage in Kosovo, where she was
    well known as a leader of women's groups distributing
    humanitarian aid and an organiser of protests against Serb
    rule.

    The trial was also widely condemned by Western governments
    and international human rights organisations.

    The supreme court in Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav
    republic, ordered a retrial four months ago but the case was
    postponed in October. The judge handling it was reported to
    have fallen ill.

    During the trial last year Brovina told the court that if
    freed she would work to help minority Serbs, many of whom
    became victims of revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians who
    returned home after NATO troops took control.
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