SARAJEVO, Feb 24 (Hina) - Bosnia's largest circulation daily "Dnevni Avaz" on Tuesday called on citizens to turn out for a protest rally outside the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Sarajevo on Friday in support to the
daily's struggle for the equality of Bosnian Muslims.
SARAJEVO, Feb 24 (Hina) - Bosnia's largest circulation daily "Dnevni
Avaz" on Tuesday called on citizens to turn out for a protest rally
outside the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Sarajevo on
Friday in support to the daily's struggle for the equality of Bosnian
Muslims.#L#
The campaign will escalate the conflict with representatives of the
international community in Bosnia, notably with High Representative
Paddy Ashdown, whom Dnevni Avaz accuses of allegedly having downplayed
the role of Muslims in the Bosnian security institutions and
judiciary.
The campaign, which is very much in accordance with the policy of the
Party of Democratic Action (SDA), was triggered by last week's verdict
passed by the Sarajevo Cantonal Court, which ordered the daily to
indemnify Social Democratic Party (SDP) president Zlatko Lagumdzija in
the amount of EUR5,000 for slander. Commenting on the verdict, the
daily said that judges with a "Communist past" were trying to impose
censorship on the daily. Dnevni Avaz also indirectly pointed to the
judges' "suspicious" ethnic background.
A ban on writing the untruths is not censorship, Ashdown told the
daily and warned that such pressure on the judiciary would not be
tolerated in any country.
Supported by the daily, the SDA has said the judicial reform in Bosnia
was being carried to the detriment of Bosnian Muslims because mostly
Serbs and Croats were appointed judges and prosecutors.
Dnevni Avaz owner Fahrudin Radoncic, one of the wealthiest people in
Bosnia. said there was no justification for banning the reporters from
writing about politicians. "That's the point of the conflict which
Ashdhown is cleverly avoiding," Radoncic said in an interview for
Banja Luka's Nezavisne Novine, published on Tuesday.
The most influential press lord in Bosnia said "a phobia of Islam and
anti-Muslim sentiment" dominated in the country, adding that the
authorities must react to that. This is not nationalism, It is our
right to ask to be treated equally after so many people had been
killed, Radoncic said.
He concluded that the scenario of Bosnia's division, which had been
drafted in Karadjordjevo, was active in Bosnia again, but now after
the war was over the implementation of the scenario was being
conducted through the colonisation of the media in Bosnia.."There is a
lobby which is trying to divide the country into a Croat and a Serb
part," Radoncic said.
(Hina) it sb