Bosnian MPs Reject Legislation to Criminalise Genocide Denial
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The House of Peoples, the upper house of the Bosnian parliament, voted on Thursday against changing the criminal code of Bosnia and Herzegovina to criminalise the denial of genocide and war crimes.
The proposed legislation envisaged that public denial or justification of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes as determined by the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia or a domestic court would be declared a crime and punished with prison sentences ranging from six months and five years.
It also envisaged sentences ranging from one to ten years in prison for those who, by abusing their position or authority, commit acts of hatred or deny verdicts passed down by war crimes courts.
The proposed legislation further aimed to criminalise the granting of awards or privileges to convicted war criminals, and the naming of neighbourhoods, buildings, streets and squares after them. Sentences envisaged for this ranged from six months to five years in prison.
The explanation of the legislation noted that the conviction last year of Bosnian Serb wartime political leader Radovan Karadzic classified the Srebrenica massacres as genocide and said that public denial of such verdicts was “deeply offensive and frightening for victims, leading to additional political destabilisation of the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and further distancing [its] peoples from full reconciliation”.
MP Zlatko Miletic, who brought the legislation before parliament, asked lawmakers to vote for the changes to the criminal code and make “a historic move towards reconciliation”.
He was backed by another MP, Denis Becirovic, who submitted a similar proposal to parliament in 2017.
But only six members of the 15-member House of Peoples voted for the changes, while nine voted against.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague ruled in 2004 that the mass killings of Bosniaks from Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb forces constituted genocide.
The ruling was endorsed by the International Court of Justice in 2007.
However, Bosnian Serb politicians refuse to accept that the 1995 Srebrenica massacres were an act of genocide – a view also held by the Serbian government.
