On this day 28 years ago, while on a journalistic assignment, Radio Priština journalists Đuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenić were abducted on the road between Velika Hoča and Zočište. Their abduction has never been solved, while their families and colleagues have been searching for the truth and justice for almost three decades. A memorial plaque erected by the Association of Journalists of Serbia in memory of the abducted journalists has been vandalized several times.
Twenty-eight years have passed since the abduction of Radio Priština journalists Đuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenić on the road between Velika Hoča and Zočište, in the municipality of Orahovac.
Slavuj and Perenić set out on August 21, 1998, toward the Monastery of the Holy Healers in Zočište to prepare a report about the return of the abducted monks. They were seen in Velika Hoča in the morning, from where they headed toward Zočište.
After traveling several kilometers, they turned onto the wrong road, which led them to members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). From that moment, all trace of them was lost, and to this day the Perenić and Slavuj families have no official information about their fate.
At the site of the abduction, the Association of Journalists of Serbia and the Association of Journalists of Kosovo and Metohija erected a memorial, which has been destroyed nine times so far and bears the following inscription in Serbian and Albanian: “Journalists disappeared here on August 21, 1998. We demand that they be found.” The plaque was most recently destroyed at the end of July this year.
In 2017, EULEX confirmed that Perenić and Slavuj had been abducted by members of the KLA, who, after threatening them with weapons, took them in an unknown direction.
The investigation into missing and murdered persons was initially conducted by UNMIK and then by EULEX, which confirmed that KLA members had abducted Perenić and Slavuj. Responsibility for solving these crimes now lies with Kosovo institutions.
At the height of NATO’s aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, other journalists were also abducted in Kosovo and Metohija, and official information about their disappearances is still unknown to the public.
Office for Kosovo and Metohija: We demand that those responsible for this crime be found and punished
The Office for Kosovo and Metohija, marking the anniversary of the abduction of journalists Đuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenić, demanded that those responsible for this crime be found and punished so that justice can be served and the families of the abducted can receive at least some consolation.
“Slavuj and Perenić are not the only journalists who disappeared or died under unexplained circumstances during the conflict in Kosovo and Metohija, but they have become a symbol of the suffering of innocent people and the failure to punish those responsible. Unfortunately, the political and security climate in which journalists working and reporting in the Serbian language in Kosovo and Metohija operate today is marked by discrimination, bans, obstruction of their work and pressure, while media workers are subjected to identification checks and punishment in full view of the international community, simply because they conscientiously and responsibly want to convey the truth about how the Serbian people live in Kosovo and Metohija today,” the statement adds.
They also recalled that this year the memorial plaque at the site of Slavuj and Perenić’s abduction was destroyed for the ninth time.
“The fact that the competent authorities are unwilling or unable even to prosecute the vandals testifies to the ideology of hatred that continues to be nurtured among separatists in Kosovo and Metohija,” the statement emphasizes.
Since 2012, when the memorial plaque was first erected, only one person responsible for vandalizing it has ever been detained.
“That person, although they admitted guilt, received a suspended sentence and a symbolic fine, thereby sending a message to all those who fuel hatred and prevent the dignified remembrance of victims that they can continue doing so without any fear or consequences,” the Office for Kosovo and Metohija statement concludes.
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Source: RTS, Foto: UNS