In RS, a fine of 600 KM for swearing and hitting, and 3 to 15 years in prison for the BiH flag!

What has been happening in the territory of Republika Srpska for years is a complete violation of human rights, a violation of the Constitution of this country, and the laws on which the security of citizens rests. In this BiH entity, violations of the rights of returnees are common, with home invasions without notice and searches under the guise of alleged danger of terrorism, writes the Patria News Agency.

Questions arise as to what means the state has to finally put an end to the legal savagery in one part of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It has just been announced that Sejfudin Tokić is facing a prison sentence of three to 15 years. Tokić was detained and questioned in Banja Luka last May with the legitimate state flag of BiH with lilies.

Journalists are attacked on camera

Let's recall that journalist Rašid Halilović was with Tokić at that moment, who was attacked on camera and prevented from working.

A trial has already been held for the attack on the journalist. Halilović has already been to Banja Luka once. But he had to listen to new threats from the man who physically attacked him once, in front of the public, before the judges. The judge in that case did not react to the new threats to the journalist. The journalist reacted by seeking protection from the public, journalist associations, the OSCE, and the OHR.

At the same time, in Višegrad, N1 journalist Adisa Ibrahimović and cameraman Alen Skorupan were attacked on camera. The violence against them was brutal, with swearing and threats, and arrogant hitting on the head with a microphone. This was definitely a more serious criminal offense from the start, and the perpetrator was fined only six hundred marks. And that was done under an expedited procedure.

How is it possible that in Banja Luka, a journalist is threatened and attacked on camera, that despite evidence such as a live broadcast recording, proceedings are scheduled which require colleague Halilović to travel hundreds of kilometers again? And that another brutal attack on freedom of public speech is immediately met with a fine of a meager 600 marks, which the Ravna Gora Chetnik Movement has already collected from the budget of the municipality of Višegrad? Isn't this a cheap attempt to appease the public?

What kind of judiciary and whose legal system is this?

Tokić is threatened with a prison sentence of three to 15 years for carrying the BiH flag, for allegedly spreading hatred and intolerance. It is obvious that in RS, they have lost all possible connection with reality. Tokić carried the legitimate flag of BiH, which the United Nations hoisted on a flagpole in front of the building in New York back in 1992. Chetniks in Višegrad carried the flags of a neighboring country, while wearing uniforms with insignia of a fascist movement.

An entity without rights and justice

The Mothers of Srebrenica are also being prosecuted in RS. Recently, Hatidža Mehmedović was prosecuted for alleged illegal gathering. Only after a reaction to this public shame did the Municipal Court in Srebrenica suspend the proceedings.

For about ten years, nana Fata Orlović has been fighting the judicial windmills of Republika Srpska over the illegally built church in her yard.

Salih Alijagić, a private businessman from Trebinje, whose property was brutally plundered during the war, recently experienced a shock when his case was transferred to another court of the same level. If there was a problem of jurisdiction, such a possibility should have been made before the start, not in the middle of the process. Lawyers have heard of changes in judges or judicial panels, but a change of court in the middle of a process has never happened anywhere except in RS.

The story of the entity judiciary in RS is becoming increasingly complex. Double legal standards prevail there, as we have seen in several examples. The protection of human rights seems not to exist for those who are not the chosen and pure nation of that entity.

This also concerns the most ordinary police investigations. If the perpetrators of a crime are Serbs, little attention is usually paid to it. The recent attack on an elderly returnee in the village of Rosulje near Lukavac, Uroš Stojanović, triggered a wave of condemnation of this act in the RS media. When it was learned that the robbers were Serbs, the case was no longer mentioned. Widespread silence prevailed even when the old man succumbed to his injuries on the evening of March 14.

Neither the international community, nor those among them who usually follow court proceedings in the name of justice and law, react to all these judicial acrobatics of the RS judiciary. Starting with this latest case of attacks on journalists. Is there any talk of human rights and freedoms at all? Is six hundred marks the price of mocking the rule of law and the humiliation of public speech?