There were also threatening posts saying that LGBTIQ people should be “killed”, “impaled”, and that “a bomb should be thrown” at them.

When Detektor contacted Facebook owner Meta, it said it had reviewed the material and completed an assessment, after which it removed some of the comments under the post due to a violation of its rules on violence, incitement to hate speech and hate speech.

But Detektor journalists saw that some of the comments – including one about a bomb – had not been removed.

The organising committee of the Bosnian Pride march says that threats tend to increase during March, ahead of the event, and that it reports them to the police, but receives no response.

The Interior Ministry of Sarajevo Canton explained that it has been following and checking posts and messages addressed to LGBTIQ people that might be characterised as hate speech or threats.

The ministry said that in recent years, it has established that nearly half the authors of offensive statements and comments that could be considered to be threats live outside Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Amil Brkovic, legal adviser with the Sarajevo Open Centre, a human rights NGO that advocates for the LGBTIQ community, said that hate speech on social media is increasingly common, further contributing to stigmatisation of LGBTIQ people. Brkovic added that the struggle against such comments is hard because of the lack of comprehensive legislation.

More efficient action against hate speech on Facebook needed

Presentation of the company “Meta”, formerly “Facebook”. Photo: Meta

Semir Hambo, editor-in-chief of Klix.ba, said the news site has introduced the latest version of Open AI in its Comments sections, making it possible to detect hate speech fairly accurately, even in the Bosnian language.

Hambo said that the tool works by detecting whether a comment contains hate speech prior to its publication. But the process doesn’t work on Facebook, where the problematic post about the LGBTIQ community was published.

Hambo said Facebook “should engage more concretely in the fight against hate speech”.

Meta told Detektor that around 40,000 people worldwide work on security on Facebook, including 15,000 people reviewing content in more than 70 languages, including those spoken in the Balkan countries.

“We don’t allow hate speech on Facebook, which means we don’t allow attacks against people on the basis of their race, ethnic affiliation, religion, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity and many more,” Meta said in a written response, also saying that it deletes such material if it becomes aware of its existence.

The social media giant said that Meta has invested a lot in artificial intelligence systems and in review teams who speak the languages of various countries.

But after examining the comments that were said to have been deleted, Detektor established that many were still visible online. Meta subsequently stated that it conducted another assessment and verification process and removed additional comments for violating the rules – but comments such as “This kind of rally can be dealt with by tanks” or “Putin, drop one [bomb] now” can still be seen.

Online threats, hate speech increase around LGBTIQ events

Festival “Kvirhana”. Photo: Asja Mustajbašić

BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina has been mapping cases of digital rights breaches, which, according to reports, increase when the LGBTIQ community is more publicly visible around festivals or the annual Pride march.

Brkovic explained that, at this time of the year, the Sarajevo Open Centre expects to be targeted. He said that the Centre has not received direct threats recently, but anti-LGBTIQ stickers were put on its front door.

He added that the Sarajevo Open Centre has filed criminal complaints on several occasions about security threats online, but prosecutors’ offices have decided not to carry out investigations because certain elements that would qualify the threats as a criminal offence were absent.

“As much as we can, we send internal reports to platforms on which hate speech is disseminated,” Brkovic said, recalling that during last year’s Kvirhana, some local politicians also incited hatred towards the Sarajevo Open Centre and the LGBTIQ community in Bosnia in general.

Prosecutor Nermin Keranovic said that the Sarajevo Cantonal Prosecution does not monitor the online space and gets its information about threats or hate speech from reports filed by nongovernmental organisations or from legal cases.

Ivana Arapovic of the Bosnian Pride march’s organising committee told Detektor that it has direct contact with the police and all threats are reported. She pointed out that, over the past five years, there have been hundreds of threats online, and they have been reported.

In her view, threats and hate speech are not harmless, so they should be taken seriously and dealt with accordingly.

“Threats, hate speech and calls for violence are present throughout the year, but they do increase in the period prior to March or during public events, workshops or festivals, because the visibility of LGBTIQ people in society increases,” she said.

The Sarajevo Cantonal Interior Ministry said that, since early June, the Centar municipality’s Police Department has received two criminal complaints and one request to initiate infringement proceedings by organisers of the Bosnian Pride march relating to security threats on social media and graffiti written on the Goethe Institute building.

The day after the opening of an exhibition entitled ‘Congratulations, Shame on You!’ organised by the Bosnian Pride march, offensive graffiti targeting members of the LGBTIQ community appeared on the Goethe Institute building in Sarajevo, as Detektor reported. The Sarajevo Cantonal Prosecution classified it as a criminal offence – a “violation of people’s and citizens’ equal rights”.

Improved legal framework needed

The film “Four Walls” about threats and attacks against the LGBTIQ community in BiH and the region. Photo: BIRN BiH

Brkovic argued that it is necessary to improve the existing laws on both administrative and criminal offences in order to better respond to criminal offences committed online.

Prosecutor Keranovic said that reports related to hate speech in the online arena, that are received by the Sarajevo Cantonal Prosecution are most frequently filed by NGOs engaged in the protection of LGBTIQ rights that have observed the shortcomings of the legislative framework in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has not kept up with the development of new media technologies and does not recognise every incidence of hate speech as criminal.

Arapovic said that the fact that the Bosnian Pride march’s organising committee doesn’t receive feedback on the outcome of its criminal complaints is problematic.

“It is important that relevant institutions proactively address the issue of hate speech and online calls for violence, given that hate and homophobia easily transfer from online sphere to the public space,” Arapovic said.

According to prosecutor Keranovic, when trying to prosecute actions committed online, the Sarajevo Cantonal Prosecution encounters difficulties due to the lack of a suitable legal framework in the Federation, which very narrowly defines criminal behaviour. He said that the point at which the freedom of speech online becomes an infringement or criminal behaviour should be more clearly defined.

“This is a consequence of tardy action by lawmakers in regulating this field in line with the development of digital technologies. It is necessary to clearly define terminology, to distinguish between liability for administrative offences and criminal ones, and to amend the provisions of the Criminal Code and the procedural legislation,” Keranovic said.

He also argued that it is necessary to allow prosecutors conducting investigations to issue an order to telecommunication operators to ensure the preservation and storing of digital evidence.

The Municipal Court in Sarajevo recently sentenced Irfan Mulalic and Ishak Bilal to a total of five years in prison for robbing members of the LGBTIQ community after they concluded a plea agreement with the Sarajevo Cantonal Prosecution.

They committed the offences after Mulalic got in touch with three gay men through a social media application for meeting gay and bisexual men.

The fifth Bosnian Pride March takes place in the Bosnian capital tomorrow, June 22.