Mostar Mufti's Office and IZ Mostar: Mario Kordić attacked Mostar waqfs

(Patria) - The Mostar Mufti's Office and the Islamic Community Council of Mostar announced today that the open threat by the Mayor of Mostar, Mario Kordić, to order city services to "re-examine" the decisions of the Presidency of the Municipal Assembly of Mostar from 1995 and 1997, which returned waqfs to the Islamic Community, unjustly confiscated during the socialist system and the absolute rule of the Party, represents an unheard-of act of legal violence against a religious community that has not been recorded in recent democratic Bosnia and Herzegovina, MINA reports.

From the first free elections in 1990 to the present day, the narrative of returning unjustly confiscated property through nationalization, expropriation, and other forms of confiscation of property of religious communities and private owners has been affirmed. Thus, in several places and cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the authorities have returned certain property to religious communities, correcting historical injustices committed in past systems, and Mostar stands out among them – these two institutions reminded in a joint press release.

The Mostar Mufti's Office and the Mostar Council also recalled the fact that the Islamic Community welcomed the return of property to the Serbian Orthodox Church during the City Council mandate of 2008–2012, and that it was the initiator for religious communities to jointly seek the return of their property on April 20, 2004.

Also, as added, a joint Request for the Return of Property, signed by the Islamic Community and the Jewish Community of the City of Mostar, was sent to the City Council of Mostar.

Mostar Mufti's Office and IZ Mostar: Mario Kordić attacked Mostar waqfs

Mayor Kordić dared to turn back the wheel of history half a century, threatening, from a position of political power, to seize Mostar's waqfs and re-register them as city property. He "triumphantly" pulls documents from the archive about the expropriation carried out on the waqf of hadži Memija Cernica, specifically the Kantarevac cemetery in Liska Street, stating that this site has been registered as the property of the City of Mostar since 1955 and that the Islamic Community received compensation for it under the Expropriation Law. Mr. Mayor clearly did not read the archive from the mentioned period well, during which religious communities had no maneuver or choice, but were faced with nationalization, which prescribed no compensation, and shameful expropriation, whereby religious communities were awarded indecent and inadequate compensation for the expropriated land – the statement said.

That this is true, as added, is confirmed by the reaction of the Bishop of Mostar-Duvno, Petar Čule, who, dissatisfied with the amount of compensation based on expropriation, filed a complaint, but the response from the District Commission for Religious Affairs states that refusing to accept compensation produces no legal effect, acknowledging that the compensation was indeed low, but calculated in accordance with the regulations at the time.

We hereby emphasize that the only commendable piece of information that the mayor conveyed to us is the one by which he "informs" us that the cemetery has been the property of the City since 1955, because this undeniably refutes his previous statements that there was never a cemetery there, because, apparently, there was indeed one – said the statement of the Mostar Mufti's Office and the Mostar Council.

Mostar Mufti's Office and IZ Mostar: Mario Kordić attacked Mostar waqfs

It is further stated that the existence of the cemetery is also confirmed by the request of the then head of Civil Protection in wartime Mostar, Roko Markovina, addressed to the Herzegovina Mufti, hadži Seid-ef. Smajkić, to allow the burial of citizens of Mostar of all nationalities in the former Kantarevac cemetery in Liska Street, which was converted into a city park in 1955, due to the Serbian-Montenegrin aggression and the inability to access the Sutina city cemetery.

This unheard-of and brazen confrontation by Mayor Kordić, with the aim of intimidation and silencing in the fight for justice regarding the stolen Lakišić waqf, once again warns all responsible officials, Bosniaks, and other conscientious people to put a stop to the fanatical and dangerous approach he is taking, which relentlessly reminds us of some long-gone failed autocratic systems of government. To conclude, we will defend the waqfs by all available means. We will not be intimidated by any threat on that path! – it was stated in the joint statement of the Mostar Mufti's Office and the Islamic Community Council of Mostar.