The Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo, Besnik Bislimi, has called on Albanians in the Preshevo Valley to vote in the parliamentary elections in Serbia this weekend, stating that “the Serbian project for silencing the Albanian voice must face resistance and non-submission”.

The parliamentary elections in Serbia will be held on Sunday, December 17.

“The central and local Serbian institutions have targeted Albanians for discrimination and suppression in the judiciary, education, healthcare, and culture, as well as access to employment and public enterprises. Even the passivization of addresses is a further continuous attempt at ethnic cleansing administratively and institutionally,” wrote Bislimi on Facebook.

He stated that he has informed the European Union’s special envoy for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Miroslav Lajčák, about the possible challenges that Albanian voters in Serbia may face.

Two lists representing the Albanian minority are participating in the Serbian parliamentary elections on Sunday.

Last month, Radio Free Europe reported on the complaints of Albanians in southern Serbia, who said they are victims of discrimination, and the police have illegally removed them from their addresses to deny them basic rights.

The Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Serbia stated in a report that the percentage of passivized addresses in the southern municipalities, where Serbs are the majority, is much lower – specifically not exceeding one percent of the overall population.

On the other hand, in the case of the municipality of Medvegja, where a mixed Serbian-Albanian population resides, this percentage is much higher – 21.2 percent in the period 2015-2019.

The passivization of addresses, in addition to the right to documents and healthcare, also denies them the right to vote in elections.

Later, the Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-Government of Serbia denied that thousands of Albanians from the Preshevo Valley have been removed from voter lists and that the police have passivized addresses, leaving residents without personal documents.