Opposition Blasts Kosovo Census Legislation Beta

Opposition Blasts Kosovo Census Legislation
Beta - May 22, 2003

PRISTINA -- Thursday – Kosovo’s minority leaders have refused to back legislation in the province’s assembly on a census planned for next year.

The head of the Serb Return coalition in the Assembly, Dragisa Krstovic, said that Serb MPs were unable to accept the legislation because no Serbs were involved in drafting it.

He warned that the census would ignore more than 230,000 Kosovo Serbs currently living outside the province while taking into account people of Kosovo Albanian origin who had never lived in the province.

Krstovic described the bill as an attempt to legalise the forcible appropriation of Serb real estate by establishing the occupation of properties in March 2004 as evidence of ownership.