LGBTI activists respond to Facebook comment on first Bosnia's Pride Parade

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Activists organising the first Bosnia’s Pride Parade announced a possibility of filing a lawsuit against a Sarajevo Canton MP based on a law prohibiting discrimination.

“I want such people to be isolated and removed as farther from our children and community. Let them go elsewhere and let them make a city, a state, laws and rights for themselves that nobody would dispute. But NOT here,” MP Samra Cosovic-Hajdarevic, who represents the main Bosniak SDA party, wrote on her Facebook page only a few hours after Bosnian LGBT activist announced the date for the first Pride Parade in Sarajevo.

Organisation committee said they would ask for the MP’s public apology and demand her political party to react.

“It is horrible that one MP and a representative of the people who were detained, isolated and removed during the past war is now advocating for the use of the very same methods towards another social group,” said Vladana Vasic, the organisation committee member.

“Based on the Law on Prohibiting Discrimination of Bosnia and Herzegovina, there’s a ground to file a lawsuit for inciting discrimination, which we are currently consulting with our lawyers,” she added.

While the news triggered a series of comments on social networks, mostly negative ones, the citizens speaking in front of cameras have a rather moderate stance.

“Everyone has right to love anyone they want, but some people do mind it. I am neutral on this topic,” said a Sarajevo citizen.

“I didn’t think about it, I wouldn’t mind it.”

“I have no opinion on that, let people have fun.”

International representatives in Bosnia including the embassies of Spain, Germany, Sweden, UK expressed full support to the first Bosnia’s Pride Parade ever organised in the country.