Two Serbian school principals detained in Kamenica

Kosovo police on Friday detained two principals of Serbian primary schools in Kosovska Kamenica. Those detained are Negovan Vasic, principal of the “Bratstvo” primary school in the village of Strezovce, and Dragan Krstic, principal of the “Desanka Maksimovic” primary school in Kosovska Kamenica. After hours of questioning at the police station, both were placed in police custody for up to 48 hours.

According to accounts from Kamenica, members of the Kosovo police first entered the family homes of the two principals and carried out searches, after which the operation continued at the school. Members of the Serbian community say that part of the school’s documentation was seized during the action.

The Office for Kosovo and Metohija stated that the principals were detained on political grounds. “They were detained on political grounds, and after hours of statements they were placed in police custody for up to 48 hours,” the Office said, describing the move as retaliation over Serbian List’s strong showing in last Sunday’s elections.

Why does Belgrade see this as retaliation?

Serbian List reads the entire operation through the lens of the election. According to the party, Vasic, as the chairman of one polling board, had filed a complaint about vote manipulation, so it views the detention as direct pressure on a man who flagged irregularities. In that reading, the arrest is not a legal but a political act, aimed at people who, during the vote, stood where ballots were counted and checked.

The Office for Kosovo goes a step further and places the whole move within a broader pattern of pressure on the Serbian community in Kosovo. Belgrade has repeated its demand for the immediate release of both principals and for an end to what it calls the targeted persecution of Serbian education workers. Pristina, for its part, routinely presents such actions as the ordinary work of police and the judiciary, without any political backdrop.

This case does not stand in isolation. In the same period, custody was lifted for seven school principals from Gracanica, who are now required to report to police until June 19. The combination of the two developments, a fresh detention in Kamenica and a conditional release in Gracanica, further reinforces the Serbian side’s impression that education workers have become a pressure point in a wider political confrontation after the elections.

What is expected in the coming days?

The next hours and days will be shaped by the Kosovo prosecution’s decision on whether proceedings will be opened against the two principals or whether, as with their colleagues from Gracanica, they will be released under certain conditions. For the Serbian community in Kamenica, where the “Bratstvo” and “Desanka Maksimovic” schools are among the few institutions around which local life gathers, the outcome is not only a legal question.

The Office for Kosovo has announced that it will inform international representatives about the case, counting on outside pressure to speed up a release. Whether the detention of the two principals remains an episode after a disputed vote or becomes the start of a new wave of pressure on the Serbian community will be shown by Pristina’s next moves. How do you view the arrests of education workers in the days after an election?