Prishtina, 20th November, 2008 – In Prishtina, on Thursday, the Forum for Civic Initiatives and Saferworld organized the conference “Small arms and human safety in Kosova”, on which participated around 80 representatives of the civil society, national institutions, Prime-Minister’s Office, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Police of Kosova, University Clinical Centre of Kosova (UCCK), Education Officials, Hunters’ Federation, representatives of international media and students.

The aim of this conference was to promote the debate on issues related to arms and human safety, and to also increase the cooperation between all actors involved in improving the safety of citizens of Kosova.

This conference was arbitrated by Dukagjin Gorani, safety Advisor of the Prime-Minister of Kosova, Shqipe Kranisiqi from the Agency for Gender Equality in the Office of Prime-Minister, Lieutenant-Colonel Naim Rexha, Head of the Department for Community Issues, Dr. Basri Lenjani, Head of the Emergency Centre of UCCK, Musli Marevci from the Directorate of Education in Ferizaj, Luljeta Vuniqi from the Kosovar Centre for Gender Studies,  Rexhep Shkodra from the Hunters’ Federation, Rrahim Sylejmani, representative of village of Gërmova (Municipality of Vitia), Alain Lapon from UNDP-KOSACC.

During the conference Lieutenant-Colonel Naim Rexha presented the statistical works of the Department for Community Issues, obtained by the Police, on the confiscation and elimination of small arms from 1999. Dr. Basri Lenjani, Head of the Emergency Centre of UCCK also presented statistics of people injured and killed by fire arms. Whereas, Mr. Gorani, from the Prime-Minister’s Office, said that the Government is taking necessary measures for the reformation of the security sector in order to provide more safety for the citizens of Kosova, on which fire-arms are also included. Mr. Emrush Xhemajli from the Parliamentary Commission for Security and Internal Affairs said that the Commission has fulfilled its task with the revision of the Bill of Arms, and the same was sent back to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and is expected to be approved next year by the Assembly of Kosova.

In this conference FIQ and Saferworld presented the latest investigative publication “Through the crosshairs – a study of changing peoples’ perceptions on small arms in Kosova”, which can be found in the section “Publications”.