Two small but loud organizations in Prijedor that cherish right-wing conservative values are most responsible for preventing a peaceful walk during the commemoration of the last anniversary of the crimes against Bosniaks in this city. BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) analyzed hundreds of their posts on social networks in which they deny the crimes established in the judgments.
Activists of the informal group “Self-respect” (Samopostovanje) in Prijedor promised on their Facebook page at the end of April 2021 that “soon there will be no territory for the free walking of ‘white ribbons‘”, an event that by then had been held for years to mark the crimes against Bosniaks committed during spring of 1992 and the murder of 102 children.
Last year, a walk was held in Prijedor. But just one year later, activists and victims were banned from doing so.
How did an informal group of citizens manage to prevent one of the most prominent ways of commemorating suffering in the past war?
Namely, the BIRN BiH analyzed all the social media posts of two nationalist groups from Prijedor, a series of events they organized and films they shot, and also spoke with members of the “Samopostovanje ” group.
The analysis shows that denying the facts about white ribbons is one of the basic narratives of the informal organization “Samopostovanje” and the Youth organization “Princip” from Prijedor. This year, two groups are involved in the official marking of what the local Serbian authorities call the liberation of the city. Partly because of the rallies announced by these organizations, the police prohibited activists and victims from walking on the occasion of the Day of White Ribbons, which has been celebrated in Prijedor since 2012.
The ban was preceded by a series of “Samopostovanje” and “Principles” activities, as well as the announcement of several rallies in Prijedor for May 31st, when the White Ribbon Day is also marked. According to the publication of the initiative “Because it concerns me” (”Jer me se tice”), the Prijedor Police Department assessed that allowing all those gatherings would lead to “a serious danger of violence”, and prohibited the peaceful walk.
During the peaceful walk, the members of “Princip” wanted to celebrate the birthdays of Hungarian President Viktor Orban and the owner of TV Pink Zeljko Mitrovic, as well as the fifth anniversary of the inauguration of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. But no one showed up at the rally, one of several for which the police said there was a risk of violence. On the Facebook page of this group, the news was published a day earlier that the police had banned these gatherings. Activists interviewed by BIRN BiH in the days of the anniversary of the crime in Prijedor believe that the rally was announced in order to prevent a peaceful walk.
“Samopostovanje” activity on Facebook starts in September 2020, when they mostly talk about Serbian culture and history. For the first time, they deny the facts about the white ribbons on November 4th, 2020, in a post in which they claim that “Muslim extremists” attacked Prijedor on May 30th, 1992. They would later use such a description for Bosniaks often.
At the beginning of 2021, “Samopostovanje” approaches the events in Prijedor at the beginning of the war in 1992. In the announcements of January 9th, they call Ratko Mladic a hero, who was then already in the first instance and later in June of that year was sentenced to life imprisonment by the judgment of the Hague Tribunal for the genocide in Srebrenica and other war crimes, including those in Prijedor.
On May 31st, in a series of posts, “Samopostovanje” says that “the lie about white ribbons must not pass.” They also use media reports about the Day of White Ribbons to label activists fighting for the construction of a monument to the murdered children of Prijedor and deny the existence of white ribbons and their mention in the proclamation of Radio Prijedor.
On the Day of White Ribbons, but also in the days after, “Samopostovanje” continues a harsh campaign of denying white ribbons. Most of their latest posts are devoted to this very topic. In their posts, they continue to label the activists of the initiative “Because it concerns me”, as well as the media that reported on the Day of White Ribbons held in 2022, Detektor writes.
E.Dz.
