The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that started 28 February 1998 and lasted until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which controlled Kosovo before the war, and the Kosovo Albanian rebel group known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The conflict ended when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened by beginning air strikes in March 1999 which resulted in Yugoslav forces withdrawing from Kosovo.
The Kosovo Liberation Army was an ethnic Albanian separatist militia that sought the separation of Kosovo, the vast majority of which is inhabited by Albanians, from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and Serbia during the 1990s. Albanian nationalism was a central tenet of the KLA and many in its ranks supported the creation of a Greater Albania, which would encompass all Albanians in the Balkans, stressing Albanian culture, ethnicity and nation. It was considered a terrorist group until the breakup of Yugoslavia.
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies fought in the former Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001, leading up to and resulting from the breakup of the Yugoslav federation in 1992. Its constituent republics declared independence due to unresolved tensions between ethnic minorities in the new countries, which fueled the wars.
Nataša Kandić is a Serbian political writer, human rights activist and coordinator of the RECOM Reconciliation Network, founder and ex-executive director of the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC), an organization campaigning for human rights and reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia, focusing on the Serbian role in the conflict. It was formed in 1992. The HLC's research was integral to the war crimes prosecutions of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), particularly the "smoking gun" video linking Serbian military forces to the Srebrenica massacres. She has won numerous international awards for her human rights work. She is a figure of controversy in Serbia where she was the subject of a defamation lawsuit by former President of Serbia Tomislav Nikolić.
Adem Jashari was one of the founders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a Kosovo Albanian organization which fought for the secession of Kosovo from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
The Turks in Kosovo, also known as Kosovo Turks, and Kosovan Turks, are the ethnic Turks who constitute a minority group in Kosovo.
The Kosovo Security Force is the military of Kosovo, tasked with territorial defense, military support for civil authorities in cases of crisis at home and abroad, and participation in international peacekeeping missions.
A series of war crimes were committed during the Kosovo War. The forces of the Slobodan Milošević regime committed rape, killed many Albanian civilians and expelled them during the war, alongside the widespread destruction of civilian, cultural and religious property. According to the Human Rights Watch, the vast majority of the violations from January 1998 to April 1999 were attributable to Serbian police or the Yugoslav army. Violations also included war crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army, such as kidnappings and summary executions of civilians. In 2014, the Humanitarian Law Center released a list of people killed or gone missing during the war, including 8,661 Kosovo Albanian civilians, 1,797 ethnic Serbs and 447 civilians of other ethnicities such as Romani people and Bosniaks.
My Blood My Compromise is a feature documentary film on Kosovo by Albanian-American director, Nuhi de Stani, Cinematography by Drea Cooper and Still Photography by Zackery Canepari.
Human rights abuses in Kashmir is an issue connected to the territory's disputed and divided status with respect to the conflict between India and Pakistan. The issue pertains to abuses in both the region administered by India and the region administered by Pakistan, particularly since the beginning of the dispute in 1947 after the partition of India.
The forests of Kosovo make up about 41% of the entire surface of the territory. Most of the forests are located in southwestern Kosovo, including the outskirts of Peja, Deçan, Istok, Junik and Gjakova and are protected by particular laws of the Kosovan Constitution. There are several types of forests in Kosovo and they are mostly represented by pinnate ones.
The Klečka killings were the mass murder of 22 Kosovo Serb civilians, including children, allegedly by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) over a period of several days in July 1998, during the Kosovo War. After the killings, it was alleged that members of the KLA attempted to dispose of the massacre-victims by incinerating their remains in a lime kiln. The Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the killings as a "Nazi-style crime."
Nusreta Sivac is a Bosnian activist for victims of rape and other war crimes and a former judge. During the Bosnian War she was an inmate at the Bosnian Serb-run Omarska camp in Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina where she and other women at the camp were raped, beaten, and tortured. After the camp's closure in August 1992 due to press coverage, she became an activist for victims of rape and is credited with helping in the recognition of wartime rape as a war crime under international law. She is a member of the Women's Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Women in Kosovo are women who live in or are from the Republic of Kosovo. As citizens of a post-war nation, some Kosovar women have become participants in the process of peace-building and establishing pro-gender equality in Kosovo's rehabilitation process. Women in Kosovo have also become active in politics and law enforcement in the Republic of Kosovo. An example of which is the election of Atifete Jahjaga as the fourth President of Kosovo. She was the first female, the first non-partisan candidate, and the youngest to be elected to the office of the presidency in the country. Before becoming president, she served as Deputy Director of the Kosovo Police, holding the rank of major general, the highest among women in Southeastern Europe.
Caddy Adzuba is a Congolese lawyer, journalist, and activist for women's rights. Her focus is on fighting sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). She worked for Radio Okapi and in 2014 she received the Princess Asturias Award for Peace.
Julienne Lusenge is a Congolese human rights activist recognized for advocating for survivors of wartime sexual violence. She is co-founder and President of Female Solidarity for Integrated Peace and Development (SOFEPADI) and director of the Congolese Women's Fund (FFC). She is the recipient of the 2018 Women’s International Rights Award from the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy and the 2016 Ginetta Sagan Award from Amnesty International. She received the Human Rights Award from the Embassy of France and named a Knight of the Legion of Honour by the French Government. She was awarded an International Women of Courage Award in 2021. On October 10, 2021, she was awarded the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, at the Armenian Monastery on the island of San Lazzaro in Venice, Italy.
Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu is a Kosovar Albanian jurist and politician serving as the fifth president of Kosovo since 4 April 2021.
Sexual violence against Tamils in Sri Lanka has occurred repeatedly during the island's long ethnic conflict. The first instances of rape of Tamil women by Sinhalese mobs were documented during the 1958 anti-Tamil pogrom. This continued in the 1960s with the deployment of the Sri Lankan Army in Jaffna, who were reported to have molested and occasionally raped Tamil women.
Hiljmnijeta Apuk is a Kosovan campaigner for the rights of people of short stature. In 2013, she was a recipient of the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights.
Vasfije Krasniqi Goodman is a Kosovo Albanian activist and politician serving in the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo.
