CDHRF: Use of Official Languages should be Observed Equally in Kosovo

Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms

Center for Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms condemns all actions directed at damaging and removal of road signs written in the official languages in different areas of Kosovo.

Under the �Standards for Kosovo� act, the Kosovo institutions should ensure that signs and names of the institutions, as well as the traffic signs should be written in Albanian, Serbian and English, but also in other languages in the areas with sizable minority communities, such as the Turkish and Bosniac communities.

The process, however, is not fully implemented in all areas of Kosovo. This is true in particular in northern Kosovo and several other minority enclaves, but also in other parts of Kosovo.

On April 20, the three-lingual sign (Serbian, Albanian, English) placed on the local hospital in Plemetin, in the Kastriot/Obilic municipality, was removed and replaced by the old sign that carried the name of the institution only in Serbian Cyrillic alphabet.

Also, several cases were registered in some areas in Kosovo that the Serbian versions of town names were painted over with black paint on the traffic signs.

CDHRF requests that this right and legal obligation, at the same time, be implemented on the whole territory of Kosovo without exceptions.