Washington

A Minority Report - Kosovo Minorities Eight Years After will be screened in Washington D.C. on Thursday, April 10th 2008 (National Democratic Institute, 2030 M Street NW, Basement Conference Room).

A Minority Report chronicles the experiences of Serbs and other minorities who were displaced from Kosovo following the June 1999 NATO bombing campaign against then-Yugoslavia.

National Democratic Institute

As of 2007, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, only around 14,000 of some 200,000 internally displaced persons have been allowed to return, and in many cases, those that return are subjected to intimidation and violence, such as the March 2004 riots targeting primarily Serbs and Roma.

Returnees also frequently find their homes and property damaged or destroyed. Since Kosovo’s declaration of independence on February 17, 2008, the issue of protection of minority communities has moved to the forefront and will be a key barometer by which the Kosovar government’s commitment to building a stable multi-ethnic state will be measured.

The documentary will be introduced and presented by Milica Matijević. She is a lawyer, activist, and freelance consultant on human rights issues. In addition to consulting on “A Minority Report,” she has served as a legal advisor on human rights in a variety of capacities including within the government of Serbia, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and the Belgrade Center for Human Rights. She is the 2008 recipient of the McCloskey Fellowship, named for the late U.S. congressman Frank McCloskey, which brings one scholar every year from the Balkans to the University of Indiana and Washington, D.C. to conduct academic research. The focus of her research is on the legal aspects of minority rights and affirmative action in U.S. higher education. She lives in Belgrade.