Pristina University

View of the Serbian Orthodox Church at Pristina University campus. Photo: Denis Sllovinja/BIRN

The Diocese of Raska- Prizren, which covers Kosovo, said the ban was made without any legal basis, "continuing serious violations of the religious rights and freedoms of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo".

The US State Department's 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom, published on Thursday, said that incidents targeting religious sites in Kosovo increased by more than 50 per cent last year compared to the previous year, citing police figures.

After the St. Nedelja's Day service was over, the church was locked to be up and again will stay locked until the annual service is held again in 2022. Few Serbs live nearby, and the young priests who used to have lodgings on the church's premises are long gone.

A group of Pristina University students protested on Friday in front of an unfinished church at their campus, one day after the Serbian Orthodox Church held a liturgy in a site, which has been a source of controversy since its construction began in the 1990s.

A lawyer representing Azem Syla said on Monday evening that the former senior Kosovo Liberation Army officer has been invited for questioning by the Kosovo Specialist Prosecution in The Hague, which is investigating alleged violations by KLA fighters during and just after the 1998-99 war.

Talks on forming a new government in Kosovo are due to start soon after the opposition Vetevendosje party came first in Sunday's snap parliamentary elections.

The party has made clear it wishes to seek to form a coalition government with another former opposition party, the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK.

Student protest in Pristina. Photo: BIRN.

In September 1996, Milosevic and the leader of the parallel system, Ibrahim Rugova, reached an agreement which would allow the Albanian students to use school buildings again.

This is the assessment of Igor Simic, vice-president of the Serb List, who commented on the intention of the Pristina authorities to integrate the Kosovska Mitrovica-based Pristina University into the Kosovo system, by passing a law on higher education.

Hoti - born in 1945 in Ratkovac - was a Russian language professor at the Pristina University, a translator, and a media worker who was captured and murdered while working with a Russian state television crew that was in Kosovo in July 1998 in an attempt to interview members of the KLA ("Kosovo Liberation Army") in the village of Lapusnik.

The meeting of European Council is on 22 and 23 March and to have Kosovo included in its agenda we need to vote and catch up, Hoxhaj said, according to Tanjug, which cited UNMIK's Media Observer.