Citizens of Stolac Announce Protest and Temporary Traffic Blockade

(Patria) - Dissatisfied citizens of Stolac have announced a peaceful protest and a symbolic traffic blockade, which will be held on Friday, June 27, starting at 2:00 PM in the city center.

The planned gathering will last between 15 and 30 minutes, and organizers emphasize that it is a warning due to, as they state, the ignoring of long-standing problems that largely affect the Bosniak community in Stolac, reports Glasstoca.ba.

The reason for the protest is primarily the months-long, poorly organized infrastructure works in the Uzinovići neighborhood. According to residents, daily life in this part of the city has become almost impossible, while responsible institutions offer no solutions or timeline for the completion of the works.

“The situation in Uzinovići is alarming, and an additional problem is the belief that all of this is not happening by chance. The majority of the population in this neighborhood are Bosniak returnees, and among them, the feeling that they are victims of deliberate neglect is increasingly widespread,” state the protest organizers.

The protest, which will be held under the slogan “We want answers!”, has a broader character. In addition to infrastructure-related issues, organizers will also demand answers from the authorities regarding a series of other problems:
• the existence of an illegal landfill near the archaeological site of Badanj Cave;
• illegal waste dumps in the Gorica settlement;
• the planned construction of a solar power plant in the Komanje brdo area;
• the still unresolved physical attack on four young men from the Masline settlement on April 7, 2024;
• continuous harassment of residents of a building in the Ada settlement due to, as stated, excessively loud music from a commercial facility located on the ground floor of the building, directly across from the Police Station.

The organizers claim that numerous appeals, initiatives, and requests submitted by elected Bosniak councilors at all levels of government have remained without any concrete response.

“With the protest and blockade, we symbolically show that we will no longer remain silent. We will not agree to be second-class citizens. We are fighting for the dignity, safety, and equal treatment of all citizens,” they state.

The gathering is announced as a peaceful protest, and citizens are invited to join in as large a number as possible to jointly express dissatisfaction and demand accountability.

The organizers remind that the goal of the protest is to draw attention to serious communal, environmental, and security problems faced by many residents of Stolac, and they call on local and higher levels of government to react urgently.