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Jennifer Thompson A report on the human rights situation in the Kosovo region since 1994 has revealed that Serbian police are continuing to repress the Albanian majority. Kosovo was an autonomous province of Serbia until 1989 when Serb nationalist leader Slobodan Milosevic imposed emergency rule. The 27-page report by the Helsinki Committee on the Human Rights stated that conditions for Albanians in the area remain grim with Serbian police torture and repression continuing. In 1994, 17 Albanians were killed, six of whom were reportedly tortured to death. By late September, at least 11 ethnic Albanians had been killed. Since March 1989 tensions between ethnic Albanians, which make up 88% of the population, and the Serbian minority (12%) were exacerbated by a Belgrade-imposed state of emergency that is targeting Albanians campaigning for Kosovan autonomy. Amnesty International reported that a trial of 44 ethnic Albanian former police officers in Prizren ended on September 22 with 38 of the defendants convicted of seeking to "undermine" Yugoslavia's integrity by force. They were charged with preparing to set up a "parallel" or clandestine ethnic Albanian police force in Kosovo, and were sentenced to prison terms of between one to six years. This was the last trial of some 160 ethnic Albanian police officers who were arrested in November and December, 1994. Since then, 139 have been convicted and sentenced to prison terms of up to eight years in four separate trials. Most have been released pending an appeal to the Supreme Court of Serbia. However, 22 who have been sentenced to prison terms of five years or more remain in detention. At the trials, the defendants, some of which were in very poor health, denied the charges and stated that they had been carrying out trade union work on behalf of the Union of (former) Police Employees. Many alleged that they had been tortured or otherwise ill-treated by police which resulted in them making false or self-incriminating confessions.