More Serb phone networks disabled

Source: Beta, Tanjug
PRIŠTINA -- The disabling of the mobile networks of Serbian providers in Kosovo continued on Saturday morning.

Landline networks are also being disabled, leaving Serb villages in Kosovo disconnected from each other.

Transmitters in Štrpce were also demolished for the regional Herc television and radio transmissions. There are 12,000 Serbs living in this municipality.

TV Herc Director Bojan Mladenović did not receive any explanation for this, adding that workers cut cables, violently opened equipment containers and destroyed all the equipment they could.

The 063 mobile network is still operating in Štrpce.

The Kosovo Regulatory Agency for Telecommunications announced that it would continue disabling and demolishing the transmitters of Serbian mobile operators.

On Friday, 14 mobile 063 and 064 network stations were disabled in other parts of the province. Ambulances and medical workers cannot work because they cannot receive calls.

Patients can be treated, therefore, only if they come to the hospital or ambulance building directly.

The Kosovo government supports the disabling of Serbian networks, stating that the action is "establishing legality on the telecommunications market in the Republic of Kosovo."

It also supports the new actions of the Regulatory Authority for Telecommunications (RAT) in “stopping the illegal work of unlicensed and unauthorized mobile operators in the Republic of Kosovo."

“The legal steps are not directed at any specific nationalities or countries, but against all operators that are not respecting the existing laws and norms,” the Kosovo government stated.