Đozo: We had the right to shoot, but thank God we didn't!

As a union representative, as a man, I can say that I don't know where the police exceeded their authority during the riots in Sarajevo on February 7. If we are talking about authority, then the public should know that all legal conditions were met for the police to use even lethal force that Friday - said Nedžib Đozo, from the Police Union of the Federation of BiH, for the BiH news agency Patria (NAP).

Đozo's comment came after the Ministry of Security of BiH requested that independent committees, which determine illegalities in the work of police officers, react urgently because the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) announced that demonstrators in Sarajevo and Tuzla were treated brutally during the demonstrations.

- That is unbelievable. First, during the riots in Sarajevo, police officers were attacked and their lives were endangered. Second, objects guarded by the police were attacked. Third, people in the facilities secured by the police were attacked. Therefore, all conditions were met for the police to use lethal force - Đozo told NAP.

He wonders if someone needed the police to use firearms for the situation to become like in Kyiv; now, one can only speculate about that.

- Fortunately, at those moments when police officers had the right to use weapons, they stopped and said: 'Stop, how can we shoot civilians, how can we shoot children'. And thank God it was like that, and no one died.

He further explains that the fact that a total of 144 police officers were injured during the protests, 12 of them seriously, and only 19 civilians sought medical help on the first day, speaks volumes about how much the police exceeded their authority during the demonstrations.

- We still have three police officers undergoing treatment. One police officer has a head injury and a disturbed balance center, a severe injury to his ear and middle ear, and a hematoma that can be very dangerous. Another of our police officers has fractures of the facial bones. He has had two surgeries and is still in intensive care. A third colleague has injuries to his trachea and esophagus - said Đozo.