In the run-up to the meeting of the European Commission that shall assess the progress made by Serbia for its accession to the EU, a report from Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org) accuses Belgrade of not protecting its ethnical minorities. The report, called "Hostages to tension", published yesterday, documents the threats and provocations suffered by the Albanian citizens in the days following Kosovo’s Declaration of Independence. According to the human rights organisation, "the government did not succeed in preventing attacks against individual citizens, and often it did nothing while the Serbian extremists broke glass, set fire to houses and threatened the Albanians". In addition, the document goes on, "no denounce ended in a criminal charge, not even when the police were on the scene of the fights". Tomorrow, the EU will publish its yearly assessment of the progress made by Serbia: "of the requests submitted by the EU explains Hrw , the protection of minorities is an extremely important point to go on with the accession procedure, but Belgrade does not have a legislation against ethnic crimes yet, and there are still no minorities in the police. "Serbia comments Wanda Troszczynska-van Genderen, a Balkan expert at Hrw will not possibly get closer to Europe unless it proves it rejects violence”.
