Bosnian Croats Moving to Republic of Srpska

Bosnian Croats Moving to Republic of Srpska


Jun 19th, 2009 | By De-Construct.net |Sarajevo today, turning into a “European Tehran”
Sarajevo Turning into European Tehran
According to Leo Pločkinić, President of the Mostar-based NGO Croatia Libertas, a growing number of Croat families are selling their property in the capital of the Croat-Muslim federation of post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina, and moving to East Sarajevo municipalities, in the Bosnian Serb Republic (Republika Srpska, RS).

Pločkinić cited the latest example of several Croat families who said they feared for their safety and moved from the Sarajevo settlement Stup to Lukavica in the Serbian part of country, in East Sarajevo.

“A straw that broke the camel’s back and destroyed the last traces of understanding is the behavior of the so-called religious police, which went as far as banishing a pig-shaped toy from the BBI [shopping] center few days ago. That is probably the best summary of modern-day Sarajevo that is slowly but surely turning into a European Tehran,” Pločkinić told Banja Luka daily Fokus.

He said that Sharia Police is nothing new in Bosnian federation, since radical Muslims have been causing headaches for the non-Muslim Sarajevo residents for years. Pločkinić reminded that members of the religious police were openly attacking couples in love and insisting on Bosnian Muslim girls and women being covered, according to the Islamic rules and traditions.

Chief Imam of Sarajevo Mosque wants to Institute Sharia Law

Nezim Halilovic Muderris during war
“Sharia Police is organized and headed by Nezim Halilovic Muderris, Chief Imam of the Bosnian King Fahd Mosque in Sarajevo. He is openly lobbying for Sharia Law to be institutionalized in Bosnia and Herzegovina, he is the man who greeted with open arms Wahhabis from around the world and it is he who spreads the inter-ethnic hatred and intolerance with his lectures in the mosque. Sarajevo Croats had enough of it already, so they decided to move away, to Republic of Srpska,” Pločkinić said.

While there is no reliable data about the number of Croats who have moved to Republic of Srpska from the federal part of Sarajevo, since “no one will ask property buyers what is their nationality”, Fokus found a notable rise in the number of non-Serb schoolchildren enrolled in Serbian Republic schools.

Mladenka Pandurević, Headmistress of the Grammar school “28 June” in East Sarajevo, confirmed for the daily that 39 students from the Croat-Muslim part of Sarajevo are attending classes in their school.

“Most of them are ethnic Croats. We also have a number of students of Croat nationality from Vogošća, who travel each day from their homes to school. Their parents insisted to have their children enrolled in our school, instead of somewhere in the Federation part of Sarajevo because, as they said, they do not feel their children are safe there,” Pandurević said.

She recalled a father of one of their students, Croat from Vogošća, who asked the school board through tears to allow his child to attend the Serb school in East Sarajevo. He told them his daughter was enrolled in a purely Muslim class in the Bosnian-Croat federation. After learning about the experience other parents of Croat nationality had with their children being shunned and verbally abused by the Muslim students, “the caring father wanted to spare his daughter the anguish”, Pandurević said.