Mevludin Mekić's Rebuttal

Mevludin Mekić, President of the UNSA Management Board, issued a rebuttal to the articles published about him by the Patria News Agency. We are publishing the rebuttal in its entirety without any corrections.

We request that at the earliest opportunity upon receipt of our request, you publish the following rebuttal to your articles published on 21.02. and 22.02.2016, titled "Trojan Horses Inserted into UNSA to Undermine the Core of the Bosnian Academic Community" and the article published on 22.02.2016, titled "Brief Notes from the Biography of the UNSA Management Board President: Mekić's Path from Priština via Niš to Sarajevo."

We state that your claims published in the news articles of 21.02. and 22.02.2016 are malicious and aim to defame the character and academic standing of our client, Mr. Mevludin Mekić.

In the articles published on 21.02. and 22.02.2016, you present statements and qualifications that are entirely malicious and untrue, thereby grossly slandering Mr. Mekić Mevludin, while also demonstrating an elementary lack of knowledge of the history of the Bosniak people in the former Yugoslavia, and the fact that around 100,000 Bosniaks of Herzegovinian and Sandžak origin lived in the area of Kosovo and Metohija, who found themselves with their permanent residence in Kosovo and Metohija, as did Mevludin Mekić, and the fact that Mr. Mekić was born in the 1970s, and there was no possibility for him to begin his studies at a non-Bosnia and Herzegovina university at that time.

According to your analysis, it appears that every Bosniak who was not in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war is someone's "Trojan horse."

Following your logic, then Bosnia and Herzegovina is full of "Trojan horses." Upon researching your portal, we have concluded that there are "Trojan horses" within Patria itself.

Mr. Mekić's stay, or rather his move from his place of residence in Peć to work and reside in Sarajevo, has no connection to loyalty to pro-Serbian politics, but rather reflects the process of Bosniak emigration from the territory of Kosovo and Metohija.

His master's and doctoral theses are unquestionable and supported by scientifically acceptable standards and results.

Your further claims about damage and consequences for the UNSA Management Board due to decisions made by the university's Management Board are also untrue, for the reason that none of the decisions for which Mr. Mekić voted have caused any damage to UNSA and cannot be personally attributed to Mr. Mekić, as these decisions are made by a majority vote of the Management Board members, and the majority of them were made with the consent of absolutely all Management Board members.

Furthermore, any connection to alleged "... well-known goals of the Greater Serbian strategy..." and the weakening "... of the Bosniak national corpus..." are malicious and false if linked to the person and work of Mr. Mevludin Mekić.

For your information, Mr. Mekić is one of the youngest doctors of medical sciences, having obtained his doctorate from a reputable and recognized medical faculty.

Therefore, any statement and attempt to link him to the security-intelligence agency of Serbia, and any potential role of Mr. Mekić in that agency, is false. We also note that your statement "... an important fact in the whole story is that all the inserted cadres are Bosniaks from the former FRY, i.e., Serbia and Montenegro, ..." linking this statement to the person and work of Mevludin Mekić, as the main character of your article published on 21.02.2016, is also the grossest form of slander against Mekić Mevludin and all Bosniaks from the territory of the FRY, for the reason that Mr. Mekić is not any "inserted cadre" but a free citizen who chose Sarajevo as his place of residence, believing it to be the heartland of the Bosniak people, and striving to make the maximum intellectual contribution to building the institutions and systems of BiH as successful, intellectually functional entities in the service of its citizens, and not according to the principles your newspaper and author construct.

In the article published on 24.02.2016, you present statements and qualifications that are entirely untrue and malicious, thereby grossly slandering Mr. Mekić Mevludin.

It is untrue that Mr. Mekić obtained his master's degree in the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica; it is a lie that Dr. Amila Arslanagić was a victim of his success, that Amila retired after his arrival as head of the clinic. It is a lie that he came to the academic community from Travnik.

It is a lie that he came to the clinic from the province, as he came to KCUS from the Center for Emergency Medicine, and after passing the specialist exam before the competent commission of KCUS.

It is a lie, as you state, that doctors were afraid when Mr. Mekić was on duty, and that politics brought him to the head of the clinic, and his appointment was supported by 93 out of 98 employees at UKCS. It is a lie that Amila Arslanagić retired while he was head of the clinic.

It is a lie that Mevludin never dealt with clinical patients, as Mekić Mevludin has been dealing with clinical patients from 1996 to 2016.

It is a lie that Mr. Rifat Štrielj influenced the members of the commission for conducting the competition procedure for the election of 6 members of the UNSA Management Board. Therefore, every statement you have made in your newspaper article, which you link to the name of Mevludin Mekić, is a complete lie and untruth.