Upper house MP Zlatko Miletic submitted a proposal for a law on banning genocide denial to the office of Bosnia’s international administrator on Monday.
He asked the High Representative, Bosnia’s top official overseeing the implementation of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement which ended the war, to use his special powers to impose the ban, arguing that the House of Peoples has previously rejected the proposal.
RELATED NEWS
The High Representative, Austrian diplomat Valentin Inzko, has previously also been saying that such a law must be adopted, most of all because certain political representatives often deny that a genocide took place in Srebrenica in 1995.
If the law would be adopted, those who are guilty of publicly inciting hatred based on nationality, race or religion by denying or justifying the wartime genocide or the crimes against humanity which were determined by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia or domestic courts would face between six months to five years in prison.
The proposal would also ask for the same sanctions for those who make decisions to award war criminals or name streets or buildings after them.
Miletic said it was unfortunate that certain MPs in the House of Peoples “missed the chance for us to make the civilised step forward and forever condemn denial and justification of genocide.”
“I think that 25 years after the war, the time has come for us to adopt such a law and with that in mind, I call upon Inzko to use his competencies and impose these changes,” he said.
