After the recently published Public Call of the Office of Communities Affairs (Financial support to NGO projects/programs for raising level of employment of members of non-majority communities, media that contribute to the protection and improvement of the rights and interests of non-majority communities in Kosovo, as well as non-governmental organizations that contribute to cultural activities that promote culture, tradition, language, cultural heritage and the identity of community members) and consequently the decision which was made by the commission regarding the abovementioned Public Call we announce the following:
- Decision on allocation of funds to non-governmental organizations and media, published on July 10 on the website of the Office of the Prime Minister, Office of Community Affairs violated procedural and administrative fundamentals, which implemented institutional discrimination, showed non-transparency and ignoring the obligations of institutions to respect rights of non-majority communities.
- We point out the law enforcement inconsistency, which harmed the organizations of non-majority communities. Namely, on the preliminary list published on the websiteof the Prime Minister’s Office, most organizations come from Albanian community, who do not meet the criteria stated in Public Call.
- We especially emphasize that with the published list, the Government continues to show tendency to disobey the laws thatregulate respect for rights of non-majority communities, and thus the rights of citizens of Serbian nationality, while constantly applying an exclusive attitude towards citizens and civil society organizations and the media from the Serbian community.
- And while the projects that are financed from the budget, which is published by the Office of Community Affairs should, as stated in the “Public Call -they give priority to non-governmental organizations/media that not only work for the community, and which have a basis in the community”, it is obvious that this is the case an omission was made, resulting in the avoiding of the non-majority community.
- At the same time, we draw attention to the fact of poor public communication withmembersof non-majoritycommunities, and the lack of efforts to make the Public Call and the results of the competition visible and accessible to everyone.
- The composition of the project evaluation committee members is also questionable.
A number of open questions remain behind the latest decision of the Office of Community Affairs, but one thing is clear -we are witnessing the violation of the law and deepening the already large gap between the institutions of Kosovo and citizens of Serbian nationality in Kosovo. Bearing in mind the above, we call on the Government of Kosovo to annul the results of this Public Call and announce a new one, which will demonstrate the ability to indiscriminately respect the law and citizens from non-majority communities whose rights are often not respected.
Signatories:
1. Aktiv
2. Centar za mir i toleranciju
3. Etno izvor
4. Humani centar Mitrovica
5. Komunikacija za razvoj društva -CSD
6. Medija centar
7. NEW PRESS produkcija8. Nova društvena inicijativa – NSI
9. Omladinska parteška aktivnost
10. RTV KIM
11. Udruženje poslovnih žena „Avenija“
