Members of the Albanian national minority from the municipalities of Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvegja will participate in the next population, household and housing census in Serbia, which will be held in October.
Sali Salihi, chief of staff of the Mayor of Bujanoc, told Radio Free Europe on July 25 that a meeting of representatives of all Albanian political parties was held in Bujanoc, who signed a joint declaration of participation.
“During the day we will publish a joint statement of the political parties on the importance of participating in the registration and we will invite the citizens to respond to the call to register”, said Salihi.
Albanians from the three municipalities in the south of Serbia, where the majority of Albanians live, boycotted the 2011 census.
As representatives of the Albanian nationality in these three municipalities told Radio Free Europe at the time, the boycott was necessary because the registration forms were printed in Cyrillic in the Serbian language.
As an additional reason, the representatives of that community mentioned the unresolved problems and unfulfilled obligations of the state towards this part of Serbia.
Ten years later, Shaip Kamberi, deputy in the Serbian Parliament from the electoral list “Albanian Democratic Alternative – United Valley”, told Radio Free Europe that he hopes that this time Serbia will listen to their demands.
“Our reason for the boycott in 2011 was due to the unwillingness of the state to listen to our demands. In this initial phase, we left it to the National Council of the Albanian Minority to establish contacts with the Bureau of Statistics and agree on the conditions”, said Kamberi.
Registration is particularly important for members of ethnic communities, which, according to 2011 data, number more than twenty in Serbia. This registration serves as a framework for determining the scope of rights they have.
According to the estimates of the international community, about 60,000 members of the Albanian national minority live in Serbia, mainly in the municipalities of Preševo, Bujanovac and Medveja in the south of Serbia.
The population census in Serbia will be held from 1 to 31 October 2022 and electronic questionnaires will be used for the first time.
