A Turkish diaspora association in the German city of Dortmund has allowed the screening of the 'Srpska: The Struggle for Freedom' film, which denies the Srebrenica genocide and equates victims and criminals, which sparked reactions in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Murat Tahirovic, the head of the Association of Genocide Victims and Witnesses told N1 he was in disbelief that the Turkish diaspora allowed this to happen.

“We are speechless,” he said, adding that a lot of effort was put to explain to the “friends, associations and diaspora” in Switzerland, Germany and Austria that both this film and its author are “evil” so they were shocked to learn it was Turkish diaspora that allowed the screening.

Serbian-Canadian filmmaker Boris Malagurski thanked the Turkish community in Dortmund for “allowing freedom of speech,” adding that they “ taught the German venues a lesson in European values, freedom and tolerance.”

The screening of this film was earlier announced in several European cities, and many reacted immediately. The Movement Association ‘Mothers of the Srebrenica and Zepa Enclaves’ condemned the idea, while the families of the war victims and the surviving victims of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina were also against it. They were particularly bothered by the fact that some scenes from the film were filmed in Srebrenica.

According to earlier announcements, the screening of the film was to be held in Lucerne, Sankt Gallen, Zurich, Uster, Balincona, Lausanne, Bern, Offenbach, Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Munich, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, Luxembourg, Salzburg, Linz, Vienna, Graz, Klagenfurt, Filahl, Ljubljana, Vinzenza, Copenhagen, Malmo, Halmstadt, Helsingborg, Stockholm, Gothenburg, and then several cities in Serbia.

The Mothers of Srebrenica Association also asked that the screening is banned.

“The film denies genocide, the aggression on the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with an intention to provide additional power to those who deny genocide in Srebrenica – those who committed crimes against humanity and genocide, those who glorify those criminals and support their perpetrators,” the association said.

The Canadian Institute for the Research of Genocide (IGK) launched a petition seeking to urgently stop the screening of the film.