Minority Rights Protection and Human Rights Policies in ... - IFSH

Concerning nominal participation, Dugolli stresses the large discrepancy between the
generous constitutional minority protection regime that attributes seats for representatives of
minority groups in both parliament and government and the reality on the level of common
citizens who live in segregation. Constitutional guarantees do not translate into proper
participation on lower levels.
According to Dugolli, the division between the
two main ethnicities in Kosovo have taken a
structural form that is hard to disentangle.
Moreover, the Serb and Albanian perceptions
of the designed solutions to the problem are
diametrically opposed. Whereas the latter see
minority protection regimes as necessary
sacrifices to gain independence, the former
consider them as one step in a strategy to
reduce Serbian autonomy to a minimum.
After the presentation, Dugolli was asked by OSCE representative Holger Engelmann to
elaborate on what he had said about the international community’s impact on the local
momentum of human rights protection. The international community intervened and still does
so because of human rights violations which an alleged local human rights movement had not
been able to prevent. Dugolli explained that he was referring to the foundations of a local
incentive for human rights protection that got lost and a lack of local ownership for what has
happened in that respect since 1999, but he does not want to be misunderstood as justifying
what has been done by Albanians in a chain of events.
Ibrahim Makolli, Council for Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms (CDHRF)
The CDHRF is the oldest organisation working in the field of human rights protection in
Kosovo. Founded in 1989 with the goal to defend and promote human rights and freedoms, it
investigates and testifies on human rights violations and demands from all that exercise power
to reject the abusing practices and to respect international documents on human rights and
freedoms. CDHRF is a member of the International Federation of Human Rights (IFHR) and
also a member of the Steering Committee of Balkans Human Rights Network (BHRN).
The CDHRF structures its work in four departments: the
Department for Education and Promotion of Human Rights,
the Department for Legal Assistance, the Department for
Monitoring of Elections and Political Processes and the
Department for Monitoring and Documenting of Human
Rights Violations. Moreover, the Council pays special
attention to minority rights in Kosovo and issues periodic
reports. Ibrahim Makolli, the representative of CDHRF,
focused his speech on this aspect of the council’s work, mainly
its wide monitoring activities.
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