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UN tribunal chief Carmel Agius told a conference entitled ‘Stop Genocide and Holocaust Denial’ in Sarajevo on Thursday that denial of genocide is unacceptable and those who do it should be prosecuted.
“We must always respond by strongly condemning those who deny it,” Agius said.
“It is time to start a big cultural attack. People who deny genocide must be uncovered,” he added.
The chief prosecutor at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, Serge Brammertz said that denial of genocide and glorification of war criminals was getting worse year by year.
“In the heart of Europe war criminals are received as heroes. That is unacceptable,” Brammertz said.
Bosnian Serb officials refuse to accept that the 1995 Srebrenica massacres constituted genocide, while Serbian officials have welcomed war crimes convicts after their release from prison.
Munira Subasic of the Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa Enclaves association, which co-organised the conference, said that 24 years after the Srebrenica genocide, the crime was still being denied and the truth contested.
“All those who committed the crime must be identified by their full names as war criminals,” Subasic said.
The UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, who addressed the conference via a video message, said that the survivors, victims and witnesses of genocide are the true heroes.
“The denial of genocide is real. It is used for political purposes, it is spread through social networks and instils fear, hate and non-reconciliation,” Dieng said.
The Bosniak member of the tripartite Bosnian state presidency, Sefik Dzaferovic, told the conference that the acceptance of truth by all sides is a precondition to stability.
“The only way out is in adopting a law on the prohibition of genocide denial and harshly punishing it,” Dzaferovic said.
