On the Gostivar (Macedonia) trial
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 97 09:45:21 -0500
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Subject: On the Gostivar (Macedonia) trial
From: MINELRES moderator \ Internet: ([email protected])
Original sender: Panayote Elias Dimitras \ Internet: ([email protected])
On the Gostivar (Macedonia) trial
PRESS RELEASE
19/9/1997
TOPIC: OUTRAGEOUS COURT VERDICT IN THE NOT ALWAYS FAIR GOSTIVAR (MACEDONIA)
TRIAL
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.
Osmani received in the end an extremely high sentence of 13 years and 8
months in prison (8 years for incitement of national, racial and religious
hatred; 4 years for organizing of armed guards for protection of the hoisted
flags; 3 years - which is the maximum penalty - for insubordination to a
court decision). Dauti also got the maximum penalty of three years in prison
for the latter offense.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greek Helsinki Monitor &
Minority Rights Group - Greece
P.O. Box 51393
GR-145 10 Kifisia
Greece
tel: +30-1-620.01.20
fax: +30-1-807.57.67
e-mail: [email protected]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
============================================================================
MINELRES - a forum for discussion on minorities in Central&Eastern Europe
Submissions: [email protected]
Subscription/inquiries: [email protected]
List archive: http://www.riga.lv/minelres/archive.htm
============================================================================