1983 is long gone, yet we are still stuck in it: Verbal offense brought back, system abused - justice left Bosnia and Herzegovina long ago!?

Written by: A. Čorbo-Zećo @aminacorbozeco

On this day in 1983, verdicts were handed down to the defendants in the staged "Sarajevo Trial" for alleged criminal association, hostile activity and counter-revolution.

Among those then accused was the future first President of the Presidency of independent Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alija Izetbegović. He was also the first-named accused, and the others accused were Omer Behmen, Hasan Čengić, Ismet Kasumagić, Edhem Bičakčić, Džemaludin Latić, Husein Živalj, Salih Behmen, Mustafa Spahić, Melika Salihbegović and Derviš Đurđević. One of the accused, Rušid Prguda, already in poor health, did not withstand the torture of the investigative authorities and died during the trial.

The indictment was filed under Articles 114 and 133 of the Criminal Code of the SFRY. The first referred to "association for the purpose of overthrowing the constitutional order", the second to "verbal offense".

Today, 41 years later, the atmosphere of fear and lynching has not ceased. Everything is well connected, and the judiciary has the final say, just like in that distant 1983.

The verbal offense has also been revived, the Republika Srpska brought it back to life, and while the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina does not prosecute genocide deniers, which is punishable by law, it instead prosecutes people for public speech. And while dozens of reports remain unresolved, in which it is stated that genocide is denied in the crudest manner and war criminals are glorified, the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina orders that Emir Suljagić, Reuf Bajrović and Bakir Izetbegović be questioned due to, as the complainant Slaven Raguž says, inciting national hatred and intolerance.

And while Bajrović's sentence 'Azra Zornić is my hero' is considered inciting racial intolerance or Izetbegović's 'counting' a mortal sin, the daily glorification of criminals by representatives of the Republika Srpska authorities and the successors of the UZP policy through the HDZ remains in the prosecutors' drawers. So, Nešić's joke at the expense of the victims of the Srebrenica genocide is not something that incites national hatred for Milanko Kajganić and others!?

This cannot be considered justice, and it is increasingly clear that where justice and law end, the Bosnian judiciary begins. Only deeply compromised by staged indictments, abuse of the system, shelving of cases and burdened by personnel who are even on the US blacklists, it inspires no hope that things will improve soon.

And while SIPA searches the CMS system used by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina under a veil of secrecy, the prosecutor's TCMS remains. Lawyers of Fadil Novalić reported former chief prosecutor Gordana Tadić for having abused this very system. Because of this abuse of the system, among other things, she ended up on the US blacklist.

Prosecutor Džermin Pašić publicly admitted that Tadić personally chose him to lead this case!? And nobody says anything!?

The CMS of lower instances also works strangely. Thus, the prosecutor of the Prosecutor's Office of the Sarajevo Canton, Darko Soldat, takes care of the cases of Ibrahim Hadžibajrić, Abdulah Skaka, Ibro Berilo...

Strange, isn't it? But the VSTV defends itself with the story that SIPA conducted a search exclusively of the CMS system used by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as if everything else functions flawlessly!? Incidentally, one cannot talk about the judiciary while excluding the VSTV, which somehow cannot justify or show the purpose of its existence. Except for appointing to judicial functions and occasionally conducting disciplinary proceedings, the purpose of their existence is somehow not visible to the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It will also be remembered that the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina are accomplices in helping war criminals avoid facing justice (the case of Milomir Savčić), and currently they are doing nothing to prevent such escapes from happening again, which victims' associations persistently warn about.

They consider it more important that they have filed dozens of indictments against members of the Army and the MUP of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and called them major cases such as the Dobrovoljačka case, Atif Dudaković and others, Jošanica, Čemerno, Konjic...

If we draw a parallel with the reaction of the US Embassy to the monument to General Mehmed Alagić, in which they equated convicted war criminals with suspicions of war crimes, it is clear why members of the army that defended itself are massively before the court. Their accusation is automatically a conviction.

Thus they tell us from the Embassy, and they behaved the same way in the case of 'Novalić and others'. It is important to have a media plan and follow it. Final court verdicts will not even matter, and whoever awaits them, given the sluggishness of judicial processes, will not have much satisfaction. One such verdict – an acquittal – was also received by Ramiz Dreković, whom they 'extinguished'. Because years of trials bring public condemnation and distancing from public life, including political processes, thereby killing the desire of future generations for some new defense.

Everything is actually clear, only no one has the strength to oppose it, so we are not far from 1983, even though 41 years have passed since then. And there is no more KPJ, now there are other persecutors!

If we translate those years into a quote from Meša Selimović 'I am forty years old, an ugly age: a man is still young enough to have desires but already old enough to fulfill them', we must ask ourselves where we are today and whether we have the strength and will to resist forces that have only one goal – the disappearance of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

And that mapped path, unfortunately, they skillfully achieve through the judiciary of Bosnia and Herzegovina - the cancer of our state!