General Elections of 1 October. People´s representatives at all levels of government, excluding the local government, were elected. The whole year was marked by the elections and the elections campaign, although the official campaign was only one month long, stated Srdjan Dizdarevic, President of the BH Helsinki Committee, at the presentation of the Annual report on state of human rights in BH, on the press conference, held on monday. (15-FEB-07)

Written by HRH / Mirsad Pandzic

The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina commented on the last year’s General Elections in their annual report, saying that political leaders and candidates had employed nationalistic rhetoric during the election campaign.

Srdjan PRESSSrdjan Dizdarevic (right), the President of the Helsinki Committee, says that inter-ethnic relations were complicated further during this period, which affected increase in nationalistic rhetoric.

“Political candidates opted for the nationalistic rhetoric as the winning one, which proved to be the guarantee for the election success. As a result of this, more radical political options were awarded, while those that were open for dialogue and compromise have been defeated”, Dizdarevic stressed.

“Politicians’ presentations reminded a lot of the time preceding the war in the nineties. The election results awarded more radical options, while they left aside more moderate politicians open for dialogue and compromise”, Dizdarevic said.

Abuse of religious gatherings and rallies
“The General Elections were marked by the language of hatred and offences against political rivals, while there were very few presentations of election platforms and programmes. Abuse of religious gatherings and rallies was observed, as well as an active role of a number of clerics in promotion of certain political options”, Dizdarevic said. The media followed the election campaign fairly, while some printed media breached the professional standards and objectivity.

“These articles promoted national campaigns and harshly offended a number of election candidates”, Dizdarevic said. According to him, the election results mostly reflected the will of voters, but the delays in implementation of election results are impermissible. The Helsinki Committee believes that the intolerance and aggressive nationalism constituted another problem that marked the previous year.

Reform of ombudsmen
Analysing the state of human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2006, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina stresses as necessary immediate reform of institutions for protection of human rights and transformation of the institution of ombudsmen in Bosnia and Herzegovina into an independent institution capable of protection of human rights based on universal principles.

“Although it was foreseen that the reform of the institution of Bosnian ombudsmen be finalized by the end of the year, this process has not been completed yet. This seriously brought into question the functioning and even the very existence of institutions for protection of human rights”, Srdjan Dizdarevic, the President of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said on Monday at the presentation of the Report on State of Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the year 2006.

Return, anti-discrimination, minorities
On this occasion, the Helsinki Committee appealed to the Bosnian authorities to pay due attention to the issue of sustainable return, adoption of an anti-discrimination law at the state level, in order to create legal assumptions for prevention of discrimination. It was also requested from the authorities to make work of police more efficient in discovery of perpetrators of criminal acts and offences.

“The authorities at all levels should show more understanding for the status of minorities, members of which are often considered particularly vulnerable and are the most frequent victims of violations of human rights. This particularly refers to women, children, third-age persons, persons with disabilities, families of missing persons, victims of torture, sexual and gender minorities, and others”, it is noted in the report.

Aggressive nationalism
The report on the state of human rights stresses that the year 2006 was marked by events that can be characterised as consequences of aggressive nationalism, starting from planting of explosive devices under vehicles to desecration of religious objects.

The interest for return is diminishing and the ethnic divisions of the country are increasing. Moreover, the data of the Helsinki Committee point out violations of human rights during deportation of foreigners and asylum-seekers, as well as violations of rights of women and children.

Explosive devices
The reports notes planting of explosive devices, which included eleven explosions in Trebinje only until 10 May of last year.

Dizdarevic warns that there were attacks on almost all religious objects, which included desecration of Jewish cemeteries and Christian Orthodox tombstones in Kakanj and Ilijas, as well as attacks on premises of the Croat Cultural House Napredak in Sarajevo. Dizdarevic criticized the police on account of these events due to their inadequate reaction. The criticism is expressed primarily because the perpetrators of attacks on religious objects are very rarely found and processed, according to Dizdarevic.

The Helsinki Committee warns of the tendency of everyone protecting their “bad boys” in their communities and no-one condemning the nationalistic incidents, unless they were committed against their own religious group. Dizdarevic says that this has been feeding the national divisions in the country.

Ethnic cleansing
Dizdarevic spoke about successes of ethnic cleansing and divisions. From the 35,000 Croats who had lived in Sarajevo before the war, now there are barely 15,000. Of the 157,000 Serbs who had previously lived in the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, now there are less than 30,000. Bosniak returnees to Visegrad, Foca and Sokolac can be counted by fingers of one hand. Bugojno now has 6,000 Croats, in comparison with 16,000 before the war! The small number of Croats in Posavina is also concerning. There had been 220,000 before the war, and now there are only 13,000.

The full text of the Report is available (in Bosnian and English) on the web page of the BH Helsinki Committee: http://www.bh-hchr.org