SDA AND DF DEPUTIES' REQUEST BASED ON RADICALISATION RATHER THAN NORMALISATION OF RELATIONS

BANJA LUKA, AUGUST 27 /SRNA/ – The request by SDA and DF deputies to the Constitutional Court of BiH to review the constitutionality of an article of the Republika Srpska Criminal Code that defines the display of symbols of the so-called Army of BiH as a criminal offence is part of a retrograde election campaign based on radicalisation rather than the normalisation of relations, DNS Leader Nenad Nešić said.

Nešić added that anything could be expected from the Constitutional Court of BiH.

"But it will be difficult for them to find some legal gymnastics to challenge these legal provisions with and say that it is normal to display the symbols of an army under which at least one people suffered. Because of fear of those symbols, hundreds of thousands of Serbs left the FBiH, thus it is certain that they do not want to see them in Republika Srpska. If that Constitutional Court declared the notes and melody of the anthem `Bože pravde` /`God of Justice`/ offensive, how could it not support a ban on wartime symbols?!” Nešić asked.

He stressed he had hoped that this year's election campaign, 30 years after the war, would focus on economic, business and future-oriented issues rather than policies of the past and conflict, announced the DNS.

"As long as we do not get rid of backward policies and politicians, and as long as we do not turn towards improving the quality of life and the future, BiH will remain a trapped state that is standing still and being abandoned by its population," Nešić concluded.