Kosovo Serbs Seize Mitrovica Court

Mitrovica

They had been employed at the local court but were forced to leave when the United Nations took over the administration of Kosovo in 1999.

International security forces did not use force in stopping the three hundred protesters from entering the building on Friday.

The crowd broke through two gates at the entrance, tore off the sign marking the building as the United Nations Mission Municipal Court and instead raised the Serbian flag, according to local Serb radio KIM.

"Serb workers entered the Court because they want their right to work back. We plan to stay here, in our offices and continue our work that stopped nine years ago," said Miodrag Ralic, one of the workers demanding the return of his job.

Ralic asked the UN to take their files from the building "and take it to the south," referring to the southern half of the ethnically-divided town where ethnic Albanians make up a majority.

Several dozen UN police officers in full riot gear, along with their ethnic Albanian counterparts from the Kosovo Police Service are on standby in front of the Mitrovica court building.

When Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on February 17, the judicial workers demanded their jobs back in another act of defiance of what they see as Pristina’s "unilateral and illegal independence."

The workers started daily protests in front of the court building asking for "the return of their jobs” preventing ethnic Albanian workers from entering the premises.

It is the first time since 1999 they have managed to re-enter the court building, in the northern, predominantly Serb-inhabited part of Mitrovica.

The move raises concern that Kosovo is effectively under two separate administrations with Belgrade retaining influence in the Serb-dominated north.