Head of victims association: We need a law banning genocide denial, hate speech

Anadolija

No normal person would celebrate Orthodox Christmas Eve the way those who marched through eastern Bosnian towns and sang nationalist songs did on Monday evening and the worst part of it is that young people did that, the head of the ‘Women victims of war’ association, Bakira Hasecic, said on Tuesday.

The incidents sent shockwaves among the Bosniak returnees in the eastern towns of Srebrenica, Bratunac and Visegrad – towns where Bosniaks were the primary targets of large-scale massacres, including the Srebrenica Genocide, which were committed by Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992-1995 war.

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“Those are Chetniks. No normal person would do what they are doing, and what’s even worse is that young people, who don’t even remember the war, are doing that. I think it’s due time for introducing a law on banning genocide denial, the glorification of war criminals and the activities of NGO’s which spread hate based on religion and national affiliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Hasecic, who is from Visegrad.

The first video appeared in Srebrenica, showing several cars passing through the memorial for the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide memorial and going further toward Bratunac.

The so-called Ravna Gora movement in Visegrad, an ultranationalist Bosnian Serb group, paraded through the town where Bosnian Serb forces committed mass murder targeting the Bosniak civilian population during the 1992-1995 war. Members of the movement honked their horns and sang nationalist songs targeting Bosniaks.

The main Bosniak party in the country, the Party for Democratic Action (SDA), asked authorities in Bosnia’s Serb-majority Republika Srpska (RS) region to “take necessary measures regarding the incidents which represent a breach of the security situation and a direct threat toward Bosniak returnees.”