Five Albanian workers were dismissed from their jobs yesterday at the sports hall in North Mitrovica and are complaining about the consequences that the change of governance there has had on the representation and inclusion of the Albanian community in public institutions.
Armend Sejdiu, who was a technical works coordinator there, calls the sudden dismissal of himself and four other Albanian workers “ethnic cleansing.”
He said today on “Kosova Live” on T7 that “with their arrival in power, several attacks against us have begun,” referring to the new Serbian leadership in the Municipality.
“First, they changed our working schedule. We had a schedule from 8 to 10, and they changed it to 7 to 11 at night. They made us work 7 days a week, claiming that the hall must always remain open,” he said.
Sejdiu stated that they were faced with “a kind of pressure” and “verbal warnings,” but nothing in writing.
He spoke about a meeting with the Director for Culture, Youth and Sports in the Municipality of North Mitrovica, Vladimir Simiq, who informed them of the decision to dismiss them.
“In the meeting, I told him it is not right to remove five of us from our jobs immediately. There should be a written document, a complaint on which the decision is based,” he said.
Sejdiu said they will pursue legal avenues to appeal this manner of dismissal.
“This is, from start to finish, ethnic cleansing,” he said.
At the sports hall, Sejdiu added that recently the logo with inscriptions in Cyrillic and the colors of the Serbian flag has been reinstated. Additionally, inscriptions inside the facility have been reverted to Cyrillic and English only, while those in the Albanian language hremoved.o removed.
