Yugoslavia Sentences U.S. Citizen for Protest in U.S.

Peter Evasaj, a 30-year-old U.S. citizen from Detroit, has been sentenced by Yugoslav authorities to seven years in prison for peacefully demonstrating near the Yugoslav Embassy in Washington five years ago, Rep. William S. Broomfield (R-Mich.) said today.

Broomfield said he was told of the sentencing by family members in Michigan and received confirmation from U.S. Ambassador John Scanlon in Belgrade.

Broomfield telephoned Scanlon during a public session of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on alleged repression by the Belgrade government against Yugoslav citizens of Albanian descent.

Broomfield, who called the development an “outrageous injustice,” said Scanlon told him the U.S. Embassy is not abandoning efforts to free Evasaj and two other Americans he said are also in Yugoslav custody.

“He told me he is still hoping there could be some favorable developments in the next 48 hours,” Broomfield said.

Dual Citizenship

The congressman said Evasaj, a schoolteacher who was born in Yugoslavia and is of Albanian descent, was sentenced for his role in the 1981 protest against Yugoslavia’s treatment of ethnic Albanians.

Evasaj, who emigrated to America in 1972, holds both U.S. and Yugoslav citizenship, and the Yugoslav authorities consider him a Yugoslav subject.

Broomfield said he will seek to push a resolution through Congress before it adjourns for the year to strip Yugoslavia of its most-favored-nation trading status and to end U.S. trade with that nation.

Broomfield said Evasaj, an American citizen for 10 years, was arrested by Yugoslav authorities in July while visiting family members.

“The American people are fed up with the Yugoslavs’ disrespect for the most basic rights of American citizens at the same time our government is bailing out the Yugoslav economy,” Broomfield said.