It is not the first time that a journalist of Večernji List Hassan Haidar Diab, whose allegations about reports form SIPA about BiH becoming a center of Islamic terrorism were denied by the national minister of security Dragan Mektić, publishes false information about Muslims in the Balkans.
Minister Mektić today said that SIPA did not make the report about BiH being the center of Islamic extremists.
Originally from Lebanon and living in Croatia since 1982, where he studies political sciences, Diab fluently speaks Arabic language, which he used in his journalism profession. This was highlighted in 2006 when the Croatian weekly magazine Nacional published 12 cartoons showing Prophet Muhammad from the Danish newspaper Jylland Posten.
This caused surprising excitement in Croatia and the atmosphere was additionally heated by the information that an alleged Islamic sheikh issued a fatwa on Nacional in an exclusive interview which was broadcast by the Zagreb television the same evening.
After the journalists of Nacional checked who the alleged sheikh is, they determined that he was in fact calling for tolerance, sending a message to Croatian cartoon publishers to teach tolerance from Muslims.
Journalist of Zagreb television who published the story and false information about the fatwa of the Lebanese sheikh was precisely Hassan Haidar Diab.
Leaders of Islamic Community in Croatia have an exceptionally negative opinion about Diabu. Former Mufti of Islamic Community in Hrvatska Ševko Omerbašić told the media that the peak of Diab’s cheap sensationalism was the case when he published texts in Croatian newspapers in which he claimed that money for construction of apartments and a high school was given by Bin Laden’s associates from Saudi Arabia.
In the same way, Diab published a text about alleged reports from SIPA and the Croatian intelligence agency SOA. In the disputed text, he mentions that “BiH is a country in which radical Islam, the one promoted by the most bloodthirsty terrorist organizations like ISIL and Al Qaida, is rapidly growing”.
This text came only days after the Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović stated that “Islam that we knew in BiH is changing, becoming more radical, especially in rural areas, the way of life is changing, even the appearance of people in terms of dressing and behavior, and a much more rigid interpretation of the values of Islam”.
This statement caused harsh reactions in BiH. Member of the BiH Presidency Bakir Izetbegović said that claims by the Croatian president “are not grounded on facts, especially taking into consideration that BiH is the first country in the region to ban the departure of its citizens to foreign battlefields through amendments to the Criminal Law”.
(Source: faktor.ba)
