Islamic Community Council: Selective application of law and discrimination in the construction of religious buildings in Mostar

(Patria) - The Islamic Community Council of Mostar announced today that it has received a decision from the Service for Inspection Affairs of the City of Mostar ordering "the immediate suspension of all works and the closure of the construction site at the location in the Mostar settlement of Gornji Zalik".

– This unpopular move by the city authorities was an expected consequence of the political pressure and legal violence that is continuously carried out against Bosniaks in Herzegovina and the Islamic Community as their most respectable institution in this part of the country, with long-recognized goals of creating ethnic space and the domination of one nation over another, in which laws are successively applied according to the needs and interests of the "ruling class", in a manner and at a time that suits them – the statement reads.

As added, the Mostar Council has no doubt that after this, three more similar decisions will follow for three Islamic religious buildings in the City area, upon the request of the Croat Caucus in the City Council.

– Likewise, there is no doubt that the request of the Bosniak Caucus to verify the validity of building permits for three Catholic churches (in Cim, in Ilidza, and on Bijeli Brijeg) will never be included in the operational plans of the Service for Inspection Affairs. Their employer – the City Administration – will simply not ask them to do so, because the provisions of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), as well as the standards of OHCHR United Nations – Office of Legal Affairs, according to which any distinction, exclusion or restriction of rights based on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin – are a dead letter in Mostar – the statement explains.

The Council assesses that the City Administration of Mostar considers discrimination in the construction of religious buildings, which international law treats as a violation of freedom of religion, and in more serious cases as persecution, as an instrument for achieving political goals, without paying any attention to the fact that any serious violation of human rights and religious freedoms can have criminal legal consequences at the international level.

– In this context, it is important to note that the policy that dominates the City Administration in Mostar has never issued a single permit for the reconstruction of mosques that were destroyed in the territory it considers exclusively its own, let alone a permit for the construction of a new religious building. Permits for the reconstruction and construction of mosques were issued by the Federal Ministry of Spatial Planning, until that ministry was taken over by HDZ cadres – the Council reminded.

In this political and social context, faced with the needs of believers, the Mostar Council emphasizes that, not reconciling with the fact that Bosniaks are second-class citizens and given that a large number of refugees, displaced persons, and other settlers have settled in the Mostar settlement of Zalik since the war, it has initiated arduous procedures to obtain valid urban-technical conditions for the construction of a mosque.

– It waited for decisions, waited and received them, after which the city authorities rejected the request for a building permit twice. In hope, and after a series of verbal promises and assurances from the highest city officials that there would be no obstacles in this regard, the mosque was built. Judging by the latest inspection finding about the closure of the construction site, it turns out that the Council of the Islamic Community was lured into a trap, that city officials deliberately involved the Islamic Community in processes that, when politics needs it, they will say are illegal – the statement says.

And precisely because of this, as added, the Islamic Community has approached legal regulations with great caution and with great respect for the usual city procedures of prior agreement with the competent officials.

– Today we are where we are because, by following legal procedures, the Islamic Community does not have the Intercultural Center "Mevlana" building built on Lakišića vakuf, while the policy that violated the law and used political maneuvering as a tool of power has erected an illegal theater in the middle of a Muslim sacred space – the Council states in its public statement.

Finally, it is stated that the Islamic Community in Mostar once again insists on verifying the construction and permits for all religious buildings and religious symbols in public areas, from the Dayton Agreement to the present day, in a way that such verification includes the active participation of international and domestic experts in urban planning and spatial planning, in accordance with generally accepted European standards and legal norms.