6 April 1999
REPORTS OF "KOHA DITORE" EDITOR'S MURDER PROVE UNTRUE
On 5 April, Human Rights Watch (HRW) "confirmed that Baton Haxhiu, the editor-in-chief of "Koha Ditore", is alive and well." On 29 March, it was reported that he was feared dead, says HRW, adding, "but sources verify that is not the case." A photograph of Haxhiu is available on the Kosovo page of the HRW website at:
http://www.hrw.org/. According to the Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of International PEN, there is also some question as to the accuracy of the reports of the murders of writers Teki Dervishi and Din Mehmeti, who were said to have been executed in Kosovo around the same time as Haxhiu and two others, after attending the funeral of a human rights lawyer and his two sons on 28 March. The WiPC reports that NATO supplied the names of the five men who had allegedly been murdered, "using sources in Kosovo. This information is now under question." The WiPC continues to investigate the whereabouts of the two writers. [Updates
IFEX "Communique" #8-12.]
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