The Albanian National Council in the Preshevë Valley has called for nationwide protests in response to the passive deactivation of addresses by Serbian authorities, a policy described as discriminatory and aimed at depopulating the Albanian community.
The Chairman of the Albanian National Council, Nevzad Lutfiu, through a video recording on Facebook, stated that this process has had severe consequences for the residents of the Valley, stripping them of their voting rights and forcing them to leave their homeland.
“Serbia’s discrimination against the Albanian community has reached the limits of racism. No Albanian family has remained unaffected by this process. For this reason, we are preparing to organize a peaceful, nationwide protest in all three cities of the Valley,” Lutfiu said.
Weeks earlier, the European Commission and the German Foreign Ministry expressed their concern over the deactivation of Albanian addresses in the Preshevë Valley, emphasizing that this practice contradicts Serbia’s obligations to respect minority rights.
Albanian political representatives have, for years, warned of discrimination through the deactivation of addresses—a claim that Serbian government representatives have denied.
Shaip Kamberi, a representative of the Albanian national minority in the Serbian Parliament, wrote in a letter to the U.S. Special Envoy for the Western Balkans, Gabriel Escobar, in January 2023, that Serbian authorities are carrying out so-called address deactivation in Albanian-populated areas, aiming to reduce their numbers in the Preshevë Valley.
He also emphasized that Albanians in Serbia are victims of the tensions between Kosovo and Serbia.
So far, according to Albanian authorities in the Valley, around 6,000 addresses have been deactivated in Presehevë, Bujanovc, and Medvegja, while the latest population census in Serbia counted around 62,000 Albanians in this area.
