“Many mothers died without living to see this,” said Munira Subasic, president of the Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa Enclaves association.

“This law will be good for two reasons, namely to ban the humiliation of and insults to the mothers and to protect the [court] judgments that have already been handed down,” Subasic added.

She said that the Mothers of Srebrenica will monitor any public denials of the 1995 genocide of Bosniaks by Bosnian Serb forces and urge the prosecution to “bring them to justice”.

Inzko announced earlier on Friday that he has imposed an amendment to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s criminal code to outlaw the public denial, condoning, trivialisation or justification of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes when this is done in a way that is “likely to incite to violence or hatred”.

Mural with the Image of Ratko Mladic in Foca. Photo: BIRN BiH

Inzko said he was imposing the changes because he was “deeply concerned that prominent individuals and public authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina continue to deny that acts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes were committed during the armed conflict”.

The move sparked an angry reaction from the Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, Milorad Dodik.

“Serbs will never accept this. This is the last nail in the coffin of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Dodik, Radio-Television Republika Srpska reported.

Dodik and other political leaders do not accept that the Srebrenica massacres constituted genocide, despite the rulings of international and domestic courts.

“Genocide did not happen,” Dodik repeated on Friday.

Vojin Pavlovic, a representative of a Serb organisation called the Eastern Alternative Association, sent to BIRN’s journalists a photo of a poster depicting Ratko Mladic accompanied by the words: “You are our hero.”

Pavlovic said his organisation will put up the posters in the towns of Bratunac and Srebrenica and throughout Republika Srpska during the day.

He said he would volunteer to go to jail and argued that by imposing legislation on the country, Inzko “will cause conflicts and other things that should not happen”.

Milan Mandic, president of the Association of the Missing Persons of Sarajevo-Romanija Region and chairman of the Advisory Board of the Missing Persons Institute, also expressed readiness to publicly deny the Srebrenica genocide.

“I am ready to go to prison for two years, but I am ready to say anywhere that there was no genocide in Srebrenica,” Mandic said.

Inzko is able to impose the ban under the so-called ‘Bonn powers’, which allow the High Representative to over-ride Bosnian politicians’ obstruction of legislation if it is considered vital to maintaining the peace in the country.

Inzko also said he will ban the “public dissemination or distribution of tracts, pictures or other material” denying the genocide, and the giving of awards and honours to people convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.

Murat Tahirović. Photo: BIRN BiH

Murat Tahirovic of the Association of Victims and Witnesses of Genocide welcomed the changes to the criminal code.

“It is now up to institutions in Bosnia to implement the law, meaning that all those denying it should answer for that,” said Tahirovic.

After Inzko’s announcement, the state prosecution said it will work with the police and security agencies to monitor and register all denials of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

But lawyer Nina Kisic warned that in practice, it might be hard to establish whether someone had spoken or acted “in a manner likely to incite violence or hatred”.