More than 1,000 ethnic Serbs protested in northern Kosovo on December 22 to demand the release of detained Serbs and other conditions that they say must be met before they will remove several roadblocks erected in the area.
Goran Rakic, president of the Serbian List party, presented three conditions at the protest, which drew about 1,500 Serbs to the village of Rudare, where they waved Serbian flags and held up a 250-meter-long Serbian flag banner as they marched in the street. The protest lasted about an hour and passed peacefully and without any incidents reported.
In addition to the release of fellow Serbs, the protesters demanded the withdrawal of special units of the Kosovo police and the "withdrawal of secret lists for the arrest and killing of Serbs."
Rakic told the crowd that without the fulfillment of these conditions there will be no dismantling of the barricades. He said that the solution to this crisis was "exclusively in Pristina."
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but Belgrade and five EU member states along with China and Russia have not recognized the move.
Tensions have flared recently over scheduled elections, which had to be postponed after the Serbian List said it would boycott them, and after Pristina moved to implement a car-license-plate conversion plan.
SEE ALSO: Vucic Says Kosovo Roadblocks Won't Be Removed Until Serbian Municipalities' Association CreatedRakic has previously said that Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti plans to "kill Serbs" at the barricades, but what Kurti actually expressed in an interview with The Guardian newspaper was concern that "the removal of the barricades could lead to possible casualties."
Kosovar Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla has also denied that the police had lists on which they rely to arrest former policemen of Serbian nationality.
The protest drew members of the Serbian community who live south of the Ibar River, which separates northern Kosovo from the south, and who are mainly workers employed in Serbian institutions in Kosovo.
Some of the protesters told RFE/RL they took part in the protest to fight for their rights, but others said they were forced to participate.
The protest was held at the location of one of the barricades erected by local Serbs on December 10 after the arrest of former policeman Dejan Pantic on suspicion of involvement in an attack on Central Election Commission officials on December 6.
Svecla, speaking at a news conference in the northern city of Mitrovica, said Kosovo had asked its international partners to transfer Pantic to an appropriate detention center. Reuters reported that a transfer would entail an airlift by helicopter because the barricades prevent a transfer over land.
Svecla also said his police force could remove the barricades but that he wanted either the Serbs or troops in the NATO-led international peacekeeping mission in Kosovo (KFOR) to remove them.
"For the sake of stability we are waiting for them to be removed by those who set them up or KFOR, but even waiting has its end," he said at the news conference.
Pantic's son; the former president of the court in Mitrovica, Nikola Kabasic; the former mayor of Zvecan, Dragisa Milovic; and members of the education and law sectors sent messages saying they wanted peace and expressing no ill-will toward Kurti's government or the majority Albanians in Kosovo.
But they condemned the arrests in northern Kosovo and claimed their goal was to "intimidate" the Serbian people.
Pantic was a member of the Kosovo police force when Serbs in the police, judiciary, and senior city posts collectively resigned last month in protest at Kosovo's decision to move forward with a plan to replace Belgrade-issued car license plates with ones from Pristina.
Ethnic Albanian units have been deployed to fill the security vacuum left after the mass resignations. KFOR troops are also present, and Belgrade has asked KFOR to allow the return of Serbian military and police to the area.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on December 21 the barricades would be removed only when Kosovo forms an association of municipalities with Serbian majorities.
In a message on December 22 to the protest in Rudare, Vucic supported the demands of the Serbs in the north of Kosovo.