Bekim Kastrati

New York, June 6, 2005— Unidentified assailants shot journalist Bardhyl Ajeti from a passing car in Kosovo last Friday, according to international press reports

Ajeti, a reporter for the Albanian-language daily Bota Sot (World Today), is now in a coma. Ajeti, 28, was driving from Kosovo's capital of Pristina to the eastern Kosovo town of Gnjilane when at least one attacker shot at him from another car, according to the Kosova Journalists Association, a local union.

The revolutionary political changes of late 2000 and early 2001 that ousted former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic ended a decade of repression for Yugoslavia's independent journalists. But after a year in power, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), which replaced Milosevic, failed to enact needed reforms in media-related laws. And while the DOS proved far less heavy-handed than Milosevic, its leaders have not hesitated to apply more subtle pressures on independent media that do not embrace DOS policies.

New York, October 22, 2001—An ethnic Albanian journalist in Kosovo was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting last Friday, according to local and international reports.

Bekim Kastrati, a journalist for the Albanian-language daily Bota Sot, was shot on October 19 at around 8 p.m. in the village of Lausa, west of the provincial capital, Pristina, along with two other men who were riding in his car at the time. One of the men was killed, and the other was wounded.