Following threatening letters, SDA reacted from the Municipality of Stari Grad Sarajevo

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - On 09/28/2020, the secretary of the public service body and assistants to the municipal mayor – heads of services in the Municipality of Stari Grad Sarajevo received threatening letters from the Party of Democratic Action (SDA). For this reason, we are addressing the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) publicly: It is unacceptable for a political party in Bosnia and Herzegovina to address the secretary of the public service body and heads of municipal services in this manner, thereby exerting pressure on their work, while simultaneously claiming to "free these same public officials from current repression and all forms of pressure and blackmail".

"We demand that you stop intimidating us, public officials, because we are not your puppets, nor anyone else's, so that you can give yourself the right to address us in this way. You and all other political parties should know that we – public officials, have been appointed to the mentioned positions based on a legal procedure, not by the will of some political party. Accordingly, we will not allow you or any other political party to control our work because you have no legal basis for it, nor actual insight into it.

All the information you refer to are alleged citizen complaints that you have not documented. We emphasize once again that we do not allow you to pressure us, threaten us, and obstruct us in performing our regular jobs and tasks, which we have already requested in the Open Letter addressed to judicial and other bodies. By delivering this threatening letter to the heads of municipal services, you have precisely documented our claims about the pressures we are exposed to.

This local community, led by the municipal mayor Mr. Ibrahim Hadžibajrić, has achieved the best results for its work, recognitions from international and domestic non-governmental organizations in the last twelve years, and we, the heads, are proud of these results, recognitions, and the fact that we work in an institution led by the municipal mayor Mr. Ibrahim Hadžibajrić.

The Central Election Commission of BiH (CEC), the Civil Service Agency of FBiH, as well as the Administrative Inspection, which is solely competent to act in cases of violation of the Law on Civil Service, will be informed about all of this," the reaction states.