Several hundred peaceful demonstrators gathered in front of the peace envoy in BiH’s building demanding that he withdraws his decision to amend the state Election law or that he resigns.
The protest was announced for Monday, starting at 5 pm and according to an N1 reporter, several hundred citizens arrived.
Azra Zornic, the appellant before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, was among those gathered.
some of the reasons the protestors stated for N1 why they came to the streets are distrust in the EU and High Representative Christian Schmidt.
“We gathered because we no longer trust the European Union and Schmidt. He imposed the law on only one part of the country and not on the level of the entire BiH. He set us back, instead of unblocking the functioning of the Federation entity,” one protestor said.
Nihad Alickovic, one of the organizers of the protest in front of the OHR building, told N1 that “the will of the citizens is being carried out” and that this dissatisfaction is the result of the wrong decision of the High Representative in BiH, Christian Schmidt, who imposed changes to the Election Law on election night. We will try with all our might, in every way, for the High Representative to withdraw his decision, which made a reservation from this country. They cement ethnic divisions. If he doesn't do that, then we will ask the international community of the European Parliament, Brussels, Strasbourg… to remove Schmidt and to appoint a new High Representative,” he said.
When asked to comment on the stance of critics of the protest that it is not a gathering of citizens, but of Bosniaks, Alicković rejected such claims…
“This is a gathering of BiH citizens, we came from 15 different cities. I know people here who are not Bosniaks, so such labelling is absurd. You now have between four and five thousand citizens. Those who tried to sabotage the protest called it a Bosniak protest. There was an attempt to cancel the protest, but I didn’t allow it. You can't play with the citizens,” the organizer concluded.
