…when the April 1 [1981] demonstration started, I was actually at home because I didn’t know, since I wasn’t in those activist groups, I wasn’t… but, since I heard that it broke out there, I went out immediately and my sister, who was only 15 at the time, was right behind me. Of course, I was trying to, I mean to convince her to go back home, but here where the Parliament is, we saw that the protesters were coming, rioters in fact, so we joined them.
I tried to send my sister away from the demonstration once more, took her up to the Green Market, but she had tailed me that day. So, we stayed there, we were right in front of the megaphone, so in front of the stage where everything that was said, we listened until the police intervened. […]
And so we ran down the street, with, the tear gas, of course, affected my sister even more, and as I said that she was a burden in this case, I mean for me, because I had to hold her tight and not let go, even when we were chased by the police.
After a few hours we arrived at home, you know, at night. But, my sister continued organizing the high school students the next day. You know, she has been like that since she was 15. To avoid police persecution, they went somewhere above Shkolla Normale, above Gërmia in that area. So she went around with the flag in her hands like that and she didn’t come back all night. Actually she remained there.
Igballe Rexha Jashari was born in 1961 in Pristina. She graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Prishtina in 1987. In that same year, she was hired as a journalist at the newspaper Rilindja. Later, she continued to work as a journalist for the newspaper Bujku until 2001. She has been a member of the Women’s Forum within the Democratic League of Kosovo since it was founded. At the moment, Mrs. Rexha Jashari works at the Ministry of Trade and Industry as Head of the Division for Industrial Policy Development. She lives with her family in Pristina.