In a statement marking Human Rights Day, December 10, the Association of Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa Enclaves once again urged Bosnia’s international administrator, the High Representative, to impose a law banning genocide denial in Bosnia.

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights’ is the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The reality is, unfortunately, far from this principle. 25 years after the aggression and genocide committed on the territory of Bosna and Herzegovina, we still have the denial of war crimes, the glorification of criminals, the belittling and systemic discrimination of war victims,” the association said, arguing that “thousands of war crimes cases” are still waiting to be tried at courts while there are fewer and fewer living witnesses.

The association pointed out that families of missing persons are still searching for the remains of more than 7,000 victims.

“War criminals roam the streets of Bosnian cities freely, and BiH Presidency Chairman Milorad Dodik named a dormitory after convicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic. It has been 50 years since the historic gesture of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, who knelt in front of the Warsaw Ghetto Heroes Monument and apologized for crimes committed during Nazi rule. Bosnia and Herzegovina is still waiting for its Willy Brandt, who would open a new chapter in the common future,” it said.

It is due time that that respect is shown to the victims and witnesses of the genocide, for the crimes to be acknowledged and perpetrators punished, the association said.

“Never was Bosnia and Herzegovina more in need of a law that would prevent the denial of war crimes and genocide,” it said, urging High Representative Valentin Inzko to “fulfil his promise and impose a law banning genocide denial.”