Moscow, February 20, 2017
Photo: Pravoslavie.ru
Bishop Theodosius of Raska-Prizren recently spoke out, condemning hateful anti-Serbian graffiti that appeared in several places near an Orthodox Church in Kosovo.
The offensive graffiti appeared several days ago on a fast food kiosk in Gnjilane, reading “Kill the Serb,” and “UCK”—the Albanian acronym for “Kosovo Liberation Army,” along with a swastika, reports InSerbia. Serbs have been selling their produce at the kiosk near an Orthodox church since 1999. This is the first such graffiti in the city in the past several years.
Similar graffiti was also found on the road leading from Gnjilane to the neighboring village of Gornje Kusce in an ethnic Albanian settlement.
Responding to this latest provocation, Bp. Theodosius noted the struggles of Serbs living in the area: “This graffiti reflects the atmosphere of hate in which 8,000 Serbs have been driven out of Gnjilane from 1999 until today. There only twenty people of Serbian nationality live there.”
Photo: Pravoslavie.ru
As the hierarch states, this is no isolated incident: “This is a sad but realistic picture of the cities and villages in Kosovo and Metohija where the majority of the population is Albanians, where ethnic cleansing as overt violence and threats and different types of pressures and discrimination have continued unabated for eighteen years since the armed conflict.”
Bp. Theodosius goes on to call for international representatives to finally bring such perpetrators to justice after an investigation, which has never happened in the various incidents against the Serbs since 1999. Attempts to minimize or tolerate acts of religious and ethnic discrimination in Kosovo and Metohija are the same as participating in the acts which, as the bishop says, will be subject to God’s judgment and the judgment of history.
