State Department: No Significant Changes in the Human Rights Situation in Kosovo in 2023

State Department (Photo: YTPrintScreen)

In its 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, published on April 23, the US State Department says that there were no significant changes in the human rights situation in Kosovo during 2023.

The report underlines serious problems with the independence of the judiciary, serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, serious government corruption; extensive gender-based violence, and threats of violence targeting ethnic minorities or other marginalized communities. “The government took credible but inconsistent steps to identify, investigate, prosecute, and punish officials who may have committed human rights abuses,” it is said in the document, available on the State Department website.

It further says that although the constitution provided for an independent judiciary, judicial structures were subject to political interference, disputed appointments, and unclear mandates. In the part on freedom of expression, the State Department says that the constitution and law provided for freedom of expression, but “some public officials, politicians, businesses, criminal elements, and religious groups sought to intimidate media representatives and used violence or threats of violence against journalists.”

“The law recognized gender-based violence as a form of discrimination but lacked a definition of gender-based violence for use in criminal and civil proceedings,” the report says, adding that rape and domestic violence were criminalized by law, but adds that government did not enforce the law effectively. The constitution prohibited discrimination based on racial or ethnic background, but “reports of violence and discrimination against members of ethnic minority groups persisted,” the State Department says in the report.