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UN expresses concern over hate speech in Bosnia, Serbia | Conflict News

The UN is “deeply concerned” by the fact that individuals have “praised and condemned war crimes”.

The United Nations has expressed concern over recent incidents of hate speech and the promotion of hate speech and violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, fearing escalating violent action ahead of this year’s elections.

Bosnian Serbs celebrated Republika Srpska (RS), which celebrated the founding of the Bosnian Serb entity, was proclaimed three decades ago.

The war in the 1990s was one of the events that killed 100,000 people and forced two million more out of their homes.

In one statement on Friday, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said the UN was “deeply concerned” that individuals had “praised and condemned war criminals for targeting and, in some cases, directly inciting” hate speech by some communities with hate speech. violence”.

Liz Throssell said people shouted the name of a punished war criminal Ratko Mladic in processions of torches, they sang nationalist songs calling for places in the former Yugoslavia and in an incident individuals were shot dead in the air outside a mosque.

Local media and victims’ associations noted that hundreds of people took part in a fireworks display organized by Belgrade Red Star football fans on Saturday in Foca, where a large portrait of Mladic was unveiled in a building.

He was a former Bosnian Serb general punished Life imprisonment for war crimes in Bosnia in particular Srebrenica the massacre and the siege of Sarajevo.

Serbia and Bosnia will hold elections in April and October, respectively, and Throssell warned that “continued passionate and nationalist rhetoric” was likely to escalate the “very tense” political environment in 2022.

“These incidents, some of which witnessed large-scale atrocious crimes in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, such as Prijedor and Foca, survivors, including those who returned to their homes after the conflict,” his statement said.

“Failure to prevent and punish such actions that create an atmosphere of extreme anxiety, fear and insecurity in some communities is a major obstacle to building trust and reconciliation.”

Throssell’s comments came when he was facing the worst in Bosnia political crisis Since the 1990s, Bosnian Serbs have blocked the work of the central government and threatened to remove Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodi from state institutions, including the army, the judiciary and the tax system.

The United States ended its three-and-a-half-year war in Bosnia with the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords. The agreement established Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state made up of two institutions: a Bosnian-Croatian-dominated federation and a Serbian-led Republika Srpska.

Dodi is a Serbian member of the Tripartite Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina and has threatened the secession of Republika Srpska for 15 years.

His latest comments sparked freshness penalties Earlier this month, Dodi was accused of corruption and threatening the stability and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Dodi rejected the measures, saying the sanctions were “lobbied by several US officials who do not share the vision of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which I signed in 1995.”




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