PRISTINA (Kosovo), April 23 (SeeNews) – Assaults on journalists, endemic government corruption are among the most significant human rights issues in Kosovo, the US Department of State said in an annual report.
Other significant human rights issues include violence against displaced persons, lack of judicial independence and violence against members of ethnic minorities and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) community, the State Department said in its Human Rights Practices report for 2017.
“The government took steps to prosecute and punish officials who committed abuses in the security services or elsewhere in the government. Many in the opposition, civil society, and the media believed that senior officials engaged in corruption with impunity,” the report reads.
Conditions in Kosovo's prison and detention centers met some international standards, but significant problems persisted in penitentiaries, specifically, the lack of rehabilitative programs, prisoner-on-prisoner violence, corruption, exposure to radical religious or political views, and substandard medical care, the report noted.
Private citizens and religious communities were largely unsuccessful in petitioning for the return of properties seized or confiscated during the Yugoslav era, the State Department said, adding that a confusing mix of laws as well as the illegal reoccupation of properties and multiple claims for the same property continued to hamper property restitution cases arising from the 1998-99 war.
Regarding elections, international and independent observers evaluated the last elections as generally free and fair.
According to the report, the Serbian government continued to operate some illegal parallel government structures in Serb-majority municipalities and illegal parallel institutions also operated in Serbian and Gorani enclaves throughout the southern part of the country.
“Ethnic minorities, including the Serb, Romani, Ashkali, Egyptian, Turkish, Bosniak, Gorani, Croat, and Montenegrin communities, faced varying levels of institutional and societal discrimination in employment, education, social services, language use, freedom of movement, the right to return to their homes (for displaced persons), and other basic rights,” the State Department said.