A ‘Traditional Family Day’ march will take place in the capital on Saturday and a day later Bosnia’s first Pride Parade is to take place, as well as a protest of its opponents and no incidents are expected, police authorities told N1 on Friday.
The spokesperson of the Interior Ministry in the Sarajevo Canton, Mirza Hadziabdic, told N1 on Friday that police undertook all measures necessary for the announced gathering to pass by without incident.
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He said enough officers have been deployed to secure the events and that Sarajevo’s police force also asked for help from other institutions – the Directorate for the Coordination of Police Bodies in the country, the police of Bosnia’s semi-autonomous Federation (FBiH) entity and the five police stations in Sarajevo.
“All of our activities are steered toward maintaining a favourable security situation and for all of these announced gatherings to take place in the best order and in peace,” he said.
Authorities have analysed the situation, he said, adding that “everything indicates that there will not be any major problems” but that police have taken preventive measures to avoid “unwanted consequences.”
There is no way for the participants of the Pride Parade and those protesting against it on Monday morning to meet anywhere, he stressed.
“The first gathering is planned to take place between 10 and 11:30 in the morning, while the walk from the Eternal Flame is planned for 12 o’clock,” he said.
Hadziabdic also announced that traffic will temporarily be stopped at certain locations in the capital due to the gatherings.
“I ask citizens for understanding because in the central part of the city the traffic will be temporarily stopped,” he said at a press conference later on Friday.
The head of the uniformed police sector in Sarajevo Canton, Dzafer Hrvat, also confirmed to N1 that no incidents are expected, explaining that the anti-sniper units that will be securing the events were employed because that is common practice with any such gathering.
“I cannot comment on the obligations of the organisers, those are regulated by law. We insisted on the implementation of all security measures and received confirmation from the organisers,” he said.
“As with all other public gatherings, those measures were planned for this one as well,” he explained.
Whatever someone’s religious or ideological stance on the LGBTI population may be, Bosnia’s society must not allow for any hate speech or violence, said the director of the country’s Agency for Gender Equality, Samra Filipovic-Hadziabdic.
She presented her publication named ‘Police behaviour in cases of criminal acts committed out of hate toward LGBTI persons: Training for a professional police response” on Friday, saying that it was put together to serve as a set of guidelines for training for a professional police response to hate speech which she said is “present in Bosnia’s society.”
“This manual is the result of a need for us to bring issues of prevention and protection from crimes committed out of hate to the attention of authorities,” she said.
Filipovic-Hadziabdic thanked Bosnia’s Islamic Community which called upon citizens to refrain from any violence regarding the Sunday event.
