Serbian human rights activists welcome ban on genocide denial imposed in BiH

The ban on genocide denial which the international administrator in Bosnia imposed on Friday came very late but represents a step in the right direction and other countries in the region, most notably Serbia, should follow suit, Serbian human rights activists, Sonja Biserko and Natasa Kandic, told N1.

“It came late, but better late than never, considering the extent to which the denial of genocide and of everything that happened in BiH has come in Republika Srpska, but also in Serbia,” the founder and president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, Sonja Biserko, told N1.

“The next step is to impose such a ban in Serbia because it is the only way for the entire region to start looking at what happened in the 90s in an objective way,” she said.

Biserko reminded that Republika Srpska, and even the Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency and leader of the strongest party in the RS, Milorad Dodik, had admitted in the past that a genocide took place in BiH, but then withdrew the statement arguing that it was made under pressure from the international community.

“However, now they will be under pressure from the international community to accept it again. And that is the only way to open up a perspective in BiH,” Biserko said.

According to the founder of the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Center, Natasa Kandic, Inzko’s decision “is in the interest of all the victims and the protection of their dignity.”

She said she expects the decision to “reduce and remove the space for glorifying war criminals.”

However, she argued that the part of the law which says that it sanctions those who deny genocide and glorify war criminals “in a manner likely to incite to violence or hatred against such a group or a member of such a group” is problematic, noting that “this is difficult to prove.”

“If such a legal provision was to be passed in other post-Yugoslav countries, the political climate and the attitude towards victims and “heroes” (perpetrators) would change very quickly,” she said.

“In any case, the leaders of the RS BiH have been put in a situation by this decision of the High Representative where they will either respect it or face political isolation,” Kandic said.