A person who in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) puts on an Ustasha cap and shouts the Ustasha salute “Za dom spremni” faces a prison sentence of three months to three years.
“Until now, we have not had such a case, that is, no one has been accused and prosecuted for such a criminal offense,” it was stated from the State Prosecutor’s Office of BiH.
After leading the Croatian national team to a bronze medal at the World Championship in Qatar, coach Zlatko Dalic was welcomed on December 22nd in his hometown of Livno. Young men on the roofs of buildings and balconies shouted “Za dom…“, to which a large part of those gathered in the square responded with “…spremni!”.
Spokesperson of the Livno police, Ivica Vrdoljak, told that “everything went well” that night.
As he said, there were no reports of any criminal acts, neither from citizens nor reports from the police in that city in western Bosnia according to prosecutors, including using the Ustasha salute.
The Criminal Code of BiH does not explicitly prohibit the glorification of fascist, Nazi and similar movements from the time of the Second World War. In the past ten years, there have been several attempts to ban them, but the proposals did not receive the necessary support.
However, “causing national, racial and religious hatred, discord and intolerance” is recognized by the Criminal Code of BiH, according to which the Court of BiH judges, and two entity laws in the Federation of BiH (FBiH) and Republika Srpska (RS), according to which courts at lower levels judge.
As for BiH, I think that the greatest responsibility lies with the politicians and institutions, because the ‘criminal narrative’ in BiH is used to increase inter-ethnic and inter-religious hatred, making it easier to rule when there are no real results from incompetent authorities,” believes Branko Todorovic, president of Helsinki board in BiH.
In 2009 and 2019, the Council of Europe and the European Parliament passed resolutions condemning totalitarian regimes, as well as a resolution on the genocide in Srebrenica, but the adoption of such resolutions in BiH, which has been a candidate country for membership in the European Union (EU) since December 15th, is still pending, RSE reports.
Photo: Slobodna Dalmacija
