Mektić for Delo: Why I called on citizens to protest

(Patria) - Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina Dragan Mektić stated in an interview with the Slovenian newspaper Delo that after four years in power, he realized that it is difficult to establish the rule of law through the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, after which he called on people to take to the streets.

"If you don't want to answer to anyone, answer to the people," said Mektić, explaining the reason for today's protests in front of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of BiH, which he initiated via the social network Twitter, reports the Patria agency. 

Minister Mektić said that if Bosnia and Herzegovina continues on the path it has taken, it will end in an abyss. Political elites, in the absence of answers to real-life problems, assessed Mektić, are rattling weapons and using national rhetoric.

The magazine Žurnal published an article about the involvement of the President of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milan Tegeltija, in a corruption scandal, in which he was supposed to influence the then Chief Prosecutor of Sarajevo Canton, Dalida Burzić, to speed up a criminal case, while Marko Pandža, an inspector of the Agency for Investigations and Protection of BiH (SIPA), took 2,000 KM from a businessman from Velika Kladuša for Tegeltija's service, noting that with that money he would "grease the wheels" for Tegeltija.

Minister Dragan Mektić then called on citizens to gather in front of the Court and Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, as a response to this corruption scandal shaking the judiciary in the country.

The protests are scheduled for today at five minutes to twelve, and Mektić received enormous support through social networks, including from public figures such as actor Emir Hadžihafizbegović.
"I will be at the head of this movement," Minister Mektić announced.

In the same interview for Delo, Mektić said that people in BiH are depressed because they are aware that there is no future in BiH "if we do not radically change," which is why he assessed today's protests as very important, in terms of sending a message to the authorities that they cannot indefinitely provoke the people.