Justice without indictments, digital world without control. In brief, this is the existing situation when we talk about cyber security in our country and, more specifically, problems such as historical revisionism, denial of genocide and hate speech. All of this was discussed by the participants of the Internet Governance Forum, where a number of important questions about security and freedom of expression were raised.
Denying genocide in the public space opens up space for hatred and violence. The Internet is a suitable area for such a thing, especially in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which does not have a law on digital media, and therefore does not define the Internet as a public space. There is not a single reported case of hate speech in Bosnia and Herzegovina, although, according to research, it is very present and on the rise.
“I’m not saying all, but a certain number of prosecutors and people who work in the prosecution and courts mostly react to pressure. I think that is the key thing, a mixture of politics and the inaction of the prosecution,” says Hikmet Karčić, research associate of the Institute for Research on Crimes against Humanity.
After the changes to the Criminal Code by which former high representative in BiH Valentin Inzko criminalized the denial of genocide, little has changed in practice. We are still without a single indictment, and as many as 27 criminal charges related to genocide denial have been dismissed.
“It is worrisome that this denial comes from the highest elected officials – we cannot now observe it in the context of why we do not have reports on Tik-Tok if we do not have reports and judicial actions,” points out Edin Ikanović, author of the Report on Genocide Denial.
Experts have been warning for years that one of the biggest obstacles is the lack of a state strategy in the area of defining the online space, which would be the basis for the adoption of a whole series of documents that would ensure the cyber security of the citizens of our country.
“In BiH, we have seen some really worrying situations in the last two years: an increase in hate speech online, a systemic relationship with large companies that affects the digital rights of citizens in BiH. And in general, we have some issues that we hardly discuss in the public space, such as cyber threats, attacks on institutions”, notes Denis Džidić, executive director of BIRN BiH.
Glorification of crimes and criminals, more frequent attacks on returnees, denial of genocide and so on. Everything, often recorded, but not processed. So, stopped just like the conclusions of the state parliament were also stopped. An audit of the state of cyber security was requested, but there was no response, reports Federalna.
