Public Denial of Court-established Truth in Serbia

The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) expresses its concern that the daily Glas javnosti published the supplement “Srebrenica ID” with its March 12 and 20, 2007 issues, in which author Milivoje Ivanišević denies that genocide was committed in Srebrenica despite the fact that genocide was established by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) judgment of February 26, 2007. This is a continuation of the culture of denial of the most horrible crime that can be committed and of the systematic attempts to revise history and the past.

It is impermissible that government officials have no comment vis-à-vis the author’s claim that the number of Bosniaks killed in Srebrenica is 407, i.e. equal, as he put it, to the number of “blindfolds found on the spot”. HLC draws attention to the fact that in the Krstić case before the ICTY it was established that “7,000 – 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men were systematically murdered” in and around Srebrenica. Further, the ICJ judgment states that Bosnian Serb forces killed over 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men following the takeover of Srebrenica. Finally, the Report of the Republika Srpska Commission on Srebrenica notes that between July 10 and 19, 1995, several thousands of Bosniaks were liquidated.

HLC calls upon the President and the Government of Serbia to resolutely stand up against the glorification of Serb-committed crimes (Nož-žica-Srebrenica), data counterfeiting, misuse of victims, and denial of court established facts on the genocide committed against the Bosniak population, and demonstrate its willingness to combat the legacy of the past and create a society based on principles of responsibility and the respect for human rights.