Bosnia’s Presidency Chairman Bakir Izetbegovic called on Bosnia’s High Representative Valentin Inzko to impose a law against the denial of genocide, in his address after the commemoration of the 23rd anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. Now the OHR told N1 that this will be Bosnia’s task after the October election.

Even though this issue is regulated at the level of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity via its Criminal Code Procedure, the Republika Srpska entity, on the other hand, does not treat the denial of genocide at all.

Several attempts were made to legally regulate the denial, minimizing, justification or approval of the crime of genocide, holocaust, crimes against humanity or war crimes against the civilian population, but all attempts failed.

N1 asked the Office of the High Representative, in charge of overseeing the civilian implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement which ended the war in Bosnia (1992-1995), whether they will impose a law regulating the denial of genocide, to which they said:

“Unfortunately, Bosnia still lacks a state-level law that would prohibit the denial of genocide and holocaust, as well as hate-speech. The need for such a law is obvious, considering the numerous previous statements. This will be one of the tasks of the new government after the October general election,” the OHR told N1. “Aggressive rhetoric, regardless of the side it is coming from, which calls on violence and invokes the dark images of war, causes concern throughout the country and is absolutely unacceptable. The Office of the High Representative strongly condemns the statements of any public figures hindering reconciliation and dialogue.”