Bosnia and Herzegovina's House of Representatives on Monday adopted an initiative demanding from local communities across the country change the names of streets, schools and other public areas named after Nazi and fascist officials and their aides, and replace them with those on the 'Righteous Among the Nations' list recognised by remembrance authority Yad Vashem.

The initiative filed by MP Damir Arnaut late November was previously endorsed by the Constitutional Legal Committee of the House of Representatives.

It is a “disgrace for the whole Bosnia and Herzegovina and its citizens,” particularly the local communities that named their public properties after individuals such as Mile Budak, Draza Mihailovic, Osman Rastoder, Rade Radic, Sulejman Pacariz…, Arnaut stressed in his initiative, suggesting that those should be replaced by the ones who “no doubt risked their lives during the WWII to save their fellow citizens from certain death in the Holocaust.”

He recalled that, according to Yad Vashem, there are 49 such persons on the list of the ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ in Bosnia and Herzegovina but that only a few streets and schools in the country were named after them.

“The time has come for this injustice and shame to be fixed,” said Arnaut, the MP of the social-liberal Nasa Stranka (Our Party).

“We sent an explicit message in the State Parliament that there is no room in this country for Ustasha commander Jure Francetic, Chetnic commander Draza Mihailovic, SS officer Sulejman Pacariz or anyone like them. While others were only speaking against Chetnik, Ustasha and Nazis, and naming schools and streets after those very same persons, Nasa Stranka restored the anti-fascist values of Bosnia and Herzegovina through its highest legislative body,” he added.