Kosovo parliament passes new media laws

Kosovo's parliament approved a penal code with new laws on Friday that require journalists to reveal their sources and make defamation a crime. In response to the new laws, Kosovo's deputy prime minister, Hajredin Kuci, resigned from office because he feels they undermine media freedom. Kosovo's parliament originally approved the new law in April, but president Atifete Jahjaga sent it back for a second vote after he rejected it. The country's prime minister, Hashim Thaci, pledged to send the code back for a third vote, but will exclude the controversial media laws.

Kosovo has been in the news since it declared independence in 2008. Last month, Moshe Harel was arrested in connection with the organ trafficking operation in Kosovo during the 1998-1999 Kosovo War. This organ trafficking scandal has been receiving more attention after a report implicated Thaci in the scheme. Since then, an EU prosecutor began investigating organ trafficking in Albania in October 2011. In August of that year a US prosecutor began investigating Thaci's role in the scandal. In February 2011 UN Special Representative to Kosovo Lamberto Zannier requested that the UN Security Council open an independent investigation into alleged incidents of organ trafficking. That January, the COE also demanded that Albania and Kosovo investigate the claims.

(Published by Jurist - June 23, 2012)