GREEK HELSINKI MONITOR
(Greek National Committee of the International Helsinki Federation)

& MINORITY RIGHTS GROUP - GREECE
(Greek Affiliate of Minority Rights Group International)

P.O. Box 51393, GR-14510 Kifisia, Greece Tel. 30-1-620.01.20; Fax: 30-1-807.57.67; E-mail: office@greekhelsinki.gr

PRESS RELEASE

19/9/1997

Our cooperating organizations, Greek Helsinki Monitor and Minority Rights Group - Greece, would like to express their grave concern about the proceedings and especially the verdict of the trial of the Mayor and the Chairman of the City Council of Gostivar. According to the report of our monitors who observed its beginning and other sources, including Macedonian media, we believe that there were instances where the trial was not fair to the defendants; while in particular the final verdict was outrageous by democratic standards, for reasons explained below. Given the political background of the trial, we would like to express our worry that this verdict in conjunction with the use of excessive police violence in the events of 9 July 1997 in Gostivar may launch an eventually uncontrollable spiral of reactions by the Albanian community in Macedonia that may seriously affect the country’s nearly exemplary stability so far, when compared with the other successor states of former Yugoslavia.

DETAILED REPORT

The trial of Mayor Rufi Osmani and Chairman Refik Dauti (charged with having neglected to execute a court ruling and the former for having incited national, racial and religious hatred, discord and intolerance, as well as for organizing armed guards for the protection of the flag) started on 1/9, and was postponed for 10/9/1997. On 1/9, the Court accepted the request of the defense, so that the defendant Mayor could prepare himself in a better way, since he had not been provided, in his detention cell, with the whole material. (e.g., important videotapes had not been showed to him).

On the other hand, the request concerning the release of the detained defendant was rejected, although the defense emphasized that the constitutionally guaranteed presumption of innocence does not justify suspicions of the eventual re-attempt of an act, and that Art. 183 of the Code of Procedure stipulates that the preventive detention should not last more than the minimum needed period of time, especially when the possible causes for such a detention do not exist anymore (e.g. riots). Another reason why this continuing detention was unacceptable consists in the lack of strict proofs showing specific attempts of the defendant to flee, in combination with the fact that he is an elected official with a permanent job, a family living in the area, and a property with a value of more than 2,000,000 DM, which could be used as a guarantee in exchange of his personal freedom. Furthermore, the defense lawyers invoked Art. 110 of the Macedonian Constitution, which concerns the protection of human rights in general, Art. 16 of the Constitution, which refers to the freedom of conscience and Art. 21 which refers to the freedom of association.

Our organizations would also like to draw the attention to the fact that since Art. 50 of the Macedonian Constitution stipulates in a very clear way that freedom of thought and expression cannot be restricted, a prosecution based on Art. 319 and concerning "incitation to national hatred etc." is incompatible to the Supreme Law of Macedonia. An act that may be considered as politically irresponsible and totally unacceptable nationalistic behavior like the use of expressions in favor of hoisting of a national flag by an official belonging to an ethnic minority, which as a political activity might contribute to the increase of intolerance in the area, should not however be punishable by law. Not only because in liberal democratic countries aggressive statements are a common practice, but also because the non-application of the same law in the case of Macedonian students who held nationalistic placards with insulting anti-Albanian slogans raises enough doubts about the impartiality of the authorities. Generally, we repeat that none of the allegedly inflammatory statements of Osmani could be considered “criminal” by liberal democratic standards.

Finally, as for Art. 377 (on the non-implementation of a court decision), it has certainly been violated by the defendant. It should be taken into account though that the recent national law about hoisting of flags does not really promote the rights of minority groups, since hoisting is allowed only on Macedonian official holidays, and since this new status is more restrictive than the more liberal legal status of Former Yugoslavia, under which hoisting any minority flag was more widespread.

The trial started anew on September 10 and lasted for six days with debates from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. A day before the indictment was read, the defense left in protest against the unfair trial which was given to the two accused officials. This protest was based on a number of violations during the trial, the major of them being that none of the seven witnesses of the defense were allowed to appear in court, while there were six witnesses on the part of the prosecution. It is interesting to point out, however, that all the prosecutor’s witnesses but one (the Chief of Police in the town of Tetovo) practically spoke in favor of the defendants.

Another act of improper procedure was that Osmani was not given the chance to get the indictment written in Albanian. Although Macedonia’s Penal Code (Art.9, Clause 3) provides for minorities to use their mother tongue in such cases, the court rejected this demand on the grounds that Osmani had received and signed his subpoena in Macedonian and that his command of the latter language was very good. Still, the court provided an interpreter to the accused but the latter said that the interpreter did not have a good command of the language, so he started using Macedonian.