In a statement issued on Tuesday, the committee said the establishment of ethnically separate schools in some municipalities pointed to dangerous nationalist programmes of ruling parties.
Municipal authorities in Capljina, Prozor/Rama and Stolac, which are ruled by the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Party of Democratic Action, adopted a decision to set up new elementary schools which would be attended by pupils of only one nationality.
Until the start of the current school year, those schools were burdened by the problem of ethnically separate classrooms.
The OSCE Mission to Bosnia labelled this practice dangerous and harmful, and called for stopping it and integrating the classrooms while respecting the guaranteed rights to nurture national identity and culture.
Instead, the authorities in Capljina, Prozor/Rama and Stolac decided to physically separate Croat and Muslim pupils.
The Helsinki Committee said this decision was contrary to the 2003 law on elementary and high school education and international documents on human rights.
The committee said the decision was directed against coexistence and tolerance, fed mistrust and hatred, and paved the way for inter-ethnic conflicts.
The committee called on the authorities and the democratic public in Bosnia to stop such conduct.
OSCE Mission spokeswoman Elmira Bayrasli said today it was sad that instead of eliminating the two-schools-under-one-roof practice, local authorities had gone a step further and set up schools on ethnic principles.