The Office for Kosovo in the Government of Serbia, through a notice published yesterday (August 24) on their official website, has published a statement, through which it is claimed without evidence that the KLA inscription written on the nameplate in the village of Batushë near Graçanica is an organized threat against the Serbs remaining south of the Ibar.
The claim raised by this Serbian institution was published on their website with the title – “Graffiti of the terrorist 'KLA' on the sign with the inscription of the village of Batushë”.
This claim by this institution about the background of the inscription "as part of organized threats to expel Serbs from the southern part of the Ibar", is also contradicted by the statements of the Serbian representative of the village of Batushë, who says that he has no information about who did this.
Link to the statement made by the Office for Kosovo in the Government of Serbia:
https://www.kim.gov.rs/v4844.php
Parts of the press release from the Office for Kosovo in the Government of Serbia translated into Albanian:
In the village of Batushë, near Gracanica, a sign with the inscription of this place was defaced in blue and the name of the terrorist "KLA" was written on it, which caused great concern and concern among the Serbs living here.
Due to the frequency of these incidents, they can no longer be seen as isolated cases, but as organized and planned threats to Serbs remaining south of the Ibar with the aim of expelling them from their homes.
This incident comes on a day when world officials are staying in Pristina, to whom Albanian politicians present Kosovo and Metohija as an oasis of multiethnicity, while the situation on the ground refutes them every day.
The Office for Kosovo and Metohija persistently emphasizes the degree of vulnerability of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija and every day appeals for the calming of tensions and the improvement of the security situation, but it is evident that politicians from Pristina do not care about the Serbs because they have not even publicly condemned a single incident.
On the contrary, with their inflammatory statements towards the Serbian people they incite violence, hoping to provoke an overreaction of the Serbs, but such a plan will not succeed.
This statement from this office has also been published in several Serbian-language media outlets from Serbia and Kosovo. (see here, here and here)
The Office for Kosovo based its decision on a photograph of a sign with the inscription of the village of Batushë, which has been covered with blue paint and the inscription KLA written on it, adding that this action caused great concern among Serbs. Although it is not known by whom and when this action was taken, as the village head himself, Marko Arsić, emphasizes in a statement to RTV KiM: "I don't know how it happened, no one knows, the only solution is to turn the cameras away from Lepina, to see who was passing by at that moment". (see here)
Based solely on this photograph, this office has raised the claim that these actions are being carried out in an organized manner by Albanians with the aim, as the office emphasizes, of threatening to expel Serbs from their homes south of the Ibar, a claim that is one-sided on the part of the Serbian side.
Analyze:
The Office for Kosovo in the Government of Serbia has published a photograph showing the inscription KLA written on the nameplate of the village of Batushë, near Graçanica, which has been covered in blue paint.
Based only on the photograph showing the KLA inscription, without providing further details such as "when and by whom was it made?", this office has created an unfounded interpretation that this is being done in an organized manner to threaten Serbs with expulsion from their homes.
Hibrid.info has verified the facts in this article, and based on its work methodology, has assessed it as a "biased interpretation".
Reasoning:
A media report is considered “biased reporting” if it is clearly seen to favor facts, positions and conclusions that align with a particular narrative, often disregarding the rule of contact with the other party when it comes to claims that are damaging to someone’s reputation or portrayed by certain actors with a negative approach. One form of biased reporting is the selective presentation of facts, where facts that support a particular thesis are emphasized, while facts that do not confirm it are neglected.