PETKOVIĆ: SCENES OF RACIAL SEGREGATION OF SERBS AND APARTHEID IN PRIŠTINA PARLIAMENT

BELGRADE, SEPTEMBER 9 /SRNA/ - Director of the Serbian Government's Office for Kosovo and Metohija Petar Petković said that scenes of racial segregation against Serbs and apartheid were staged in the Pristina parliament today, with the aim of reducing an entire people to the level of a "community."

"Today's scenes in the Priština Assembly, where representatives of Srpska Lista are denied the right to speak and threatened with prosecution simply because they proudly emphasize their affiliation with the Serb people, are pure racial segregation of Serbs and apartheid, aimed at reducing an entire people to the level of a `community`," Petković posted on X. He asked whether the EU would finally react to the public denial by the authorities in Pristina that the Serb people exist in the province. He stressed that everything the Serb people are subjected to - persecution, arrests, demolition of houses, pressure on the Serbian language and bans on Serbian symbols - is part of Priština's policy, which openly claims that the Serb people do not exist. While nominating Slavko Simić for deputy speaker of the assembly of self-proclaimed Kosovo, Srpska Lista lawmaker Igor Simić referred to the Serb people, prompting lawmakers from Albin Kurti's Self-Determination Movement to say that there is "no Serb people" in Kosovo and Metohija, but rather a "Serbian community" living there. Kurti's lawmaker Arjeta Fejza called for the Constitutional Court to react to the mention of the "Serb people," claiming that this had called the constitutional order into question. Newly elected speaker of the so-called Kosovo Assembly Albulena Haxhiu demanded that Simić withdraw his statement, but he replied that he belonged to the Serb people and that she would not take that right away from him. Haxhiu then took the floor away from Simić and subsequently adjourned the constituent session of parliament, announcing that it would resume on Friday, September 11.