Official says Serb minority in Albania, Montenegro and Slovenia faces many problems


ZAGREB/BELGRADE, Aug 17. (Hina). A state secretary in the Serbian ministry for expatriates' affairs has said ethnic Serbs were faced with many problems in southeastern European countries, notably in Albania, Montenegro and Slovenia.


State Secretary Miodrag Jaksic said in a statement published by Tanjug news agency on Sunday that the Serb community in Albania was the most endangered minority in Europe.
"Serbs in Albania cannot use their mother tongue and exercise their religious rites and ceremonies. A majority of local Serbs were forced to change their names during the rule of Enver Hoxha ," the Serbian official said in the statement.


According to Jaksic, currently the most painful situation is in Montenegro where 35 percent of the total population have declared themselves Serbs but Montenegro denies them "minimum constitutional and statutory rights in the fields of culture, education, religion and information".
"Serbs in Hungary are one of the 13 recognised national minorities, but they have been waiting 17 years for the adoption of legislation and their right to have their representative in the Hungarian parliament," Jaksic said.


He described the situation in Slovenia as more complex, given that Serbs were not yet given a status of national minority although there were 50,000 Serbs in that country.


According to Jaksic, Serbs in Croatia encounter problems such as denial of their tenancy rights which is why they cannot get back their property, overdue pensions and problems arising from the non-enforcement of laws on the ethnic minorities' rights.Jaksic pointed out Romania and Macedonia as positive examples for treatment of the Serb minority.