Justice TV Archives

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Bosnia and Herzegovina concludes its ‘Forgotten Victims’ campaign with this month’s TV Justice programme, last instalment in a ten-month series highlighting the experiences of war victims and their families. The series intends to draw public and judicial attention to crimes that have not yet been prosecuted, with the aim of instigating investigations and charges against those responsible. The lack of co-operation between countries in the region is one of the obstacles to prosecuting these crimes.

Throughout Europe, the number of far-right organisations is growing, but more and more countries are imposing complete bans on their activities. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, and especially in Mostar and Prijedor, neo-Nazi symbols can constantly be seen. The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network Bosnia and Herzegovina has researched the influence of these groups.

Websites registered in countries with large expatriate Bosnian communities often publish fake news stories containing hate speech, nationalistic narratives and propaganda, with a negative effect on social, ethnic and political relations back home, analysis by BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina shows.

Political parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina surreptitiously swap seats on the committees that oversee polling stations, allowing them to influence the vote count on election day to their own advantage – and it’s not illegal.

Local judicial institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina are often criticised for imposing low penalties for returnees from foreign battlefields. Several European countries began trying former fighters for terrorism and war crimes, increasing the sentences handed down to them. We have analysed what needs to be done by domestic judicial institutions to start prosecuting such crimes, what needs to be done to collect evidence and why experts consider that the Bosnian judiciary is ready.

Public displays of support for war crimes defendants, nationalist political rhetoric and Bosnian Serb officials’ denials of the Srebrenica genocide are causing unease among Bosniaks who have returned to the town after fleeing during the war.

Trials with large numbers of defendants cannot resume because of the problem of safe social distancing at the Bosnian state court, which will further slow the process of dealing with the country’s huge backlog of war crimes cases.

Hundreds of families in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been searching for the remains of their loved ones for a quarter of a century – and the agonising wait has now been prolonged again by the coronavirus pandemic.

A hospital concealed underground to avoid artillery fire in the Bosnian town of Olovo managed to save hundreds of lives during the war – and medics who worked there hope it can be preserved as a permanent monument.

Ahead of Ratko Mladic’s appeal against his conviction for genocide and other wartime crimes, Srebrenica victims’ relatives are becoming anxious about the outcome after judges were replaced for alleged bias against the Bosnian Serb commander.

Justice TV

TV Justice Magazine I Episode 120: Cross-Border Cooperation Failures Obstruct Justice

Episode 119: Ultra-Right Groups Show Their Face in Bosnia

Episode 118: Bosnian Diaspora-Based Websites Promote Nationalistic Narratives

Episode 117: Bosnian Polling Station Abuses are ‘Mechanism for Vote Theft’

Episode 116: Can Bosnia try former ISIS fighters for war crimes?

Episode 115: Nationalism Festers in Srebrenica, 25 Years after Genocide

Episode 114: Coronavirus Safeguards Stop Large-Scale Bosnian War Trials Resuming

Episode 113: Pandemic Prolongs Families’ Long Wait to Find Wartime Missing

Episode 112: How a Hidden Bosnian War Clinic Saved Lives

Episode 111: Ratko Mladic’s Appeal Causes Anxiety for Bosnian War Survivors

Pratite nas