In Mostar, the imams of the Majlis of the Islamic Community of Mostar and a few citizens gathered in front of the City Hall to express their dissatisfaction with the fact that, as they claim, the building of the Croatian National Theater was built in 2002 on the former waqf land and in the central city area.
As it was pointed out, the Islamic community has been fighting a legal battle for many years to obtain the necessary permits in order to build an Islamic center on that site. They said that the Islamic community cannot remain silent and watch silently as their elementary rights to the return of waqf property are taken away, and that the city administration turns a deaf ear to their request for the construction of a central mosque and an Islamic cultural center.
“Many citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, do not know or will not hear that the locality was taken from the Islamic community by the occupying Austro-Hungarian government with an act of force and the railway was built there, and that they never paid any compensation to the waqf. They had committed themselves to build a museum and a mausoleum there as a sign of memory that there was a harem, but they never did that either,” said Kenan ef. Ovčina, assistant to the chief imam in Mostar.
