'EASING OF RELATIONS' With police assistance, EP HZHB removed 150 BiH flags in Čapljina

(Patria) - While these days messages of support for our national team at the World Cup were arriving from Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Tuzla and numerous other cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a completely different picture is emerging from the south of the country.

As readers from Čapljina report to us, this morning workers of Elektroprivreda HZHB, with police presence, removed flags of Bosnia and Herzegovina that had been placed as a symbol of support for the national team at the World Cup.

About 150 flags of Bosnia and Herzegovina were taken down.

These flags have been a sight in recent weeks that could be seen across the country, regardless of political, national or other differences, but in Čapljina, apparently, they received different treatment.

The entire case carries particular weight given the fact that it concerns a community which, despite decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Federation of BiH, uses symbols that have been declared unconstitutional. The coat of arms, flag, seal and Day of Čapljina, according to court rulings, do not reflect the equality of all citizens, but rather represent symbols of only one people and one religious community.

Therefore, the removal of state flags of Bosnia and Herzegovina does not appear as a mere municipal or administrative decision, but as a message that can hardly be understood otherwise than as a demonstration of intolerance toward the symbols of the state.

It is particularly disheartening and evokes a sense of disgust that the flags of a country whose representatives have united millions of people these days are being removed precisely in a community that for years has refused to align its own symbols with the decisions of the highest judicial institutions, reports vijesti.ba.