Violence feared at Bosnia gay fest

Rights groups urge tolerance in country where widespread homophobia overrides ethnic divisions

By Sabina Niksic - Agence France-Presse

SARAJEVO – Bosnia’s first-ever gay festival opens this week amid fears of violence, with homophobia overriding the usual divisions among the country’s wartime foes – Muslims, Serbs and Croats.

The Muslim majority is particularly upset about the four-day Queer Festival because it will open in Sarajevo on Wednesday – during the holy month of Ramadan.

Many others, including members of various ethnic political parties, have gone as far as declaring homosexuality an illness and the behavior deviant.

Parliament member Amila Alikadic-Husovic drew widespread criticism after declaring that such an “illness should be cured and not supported” but remains unapologetic. “I demand my right to religious freedom, my religion prohibits it,” Alikadic-Husovic told AFP, adding she had just recently learned that homosexuality was no longer classified as an illness. “If the law gives them the right to do that, let them do it,” the lawmaker said. “But if my children were homosexuals, I would be as desperate as if they were kleptomaniac, schizophrenic or otherwise seriously ill.”

Such statements have been accompanied by a broader campaign of hate which has seen posters declaring “Death to Homos” appear in the capital and a torrent of abuse on Internet forums. These have been met by condemnation and calls for tolerance from rights groups such as Amnesty International and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The OSCE said that it “strongly condemns attempts to incite violence against any group within Bosnia. Posters appearing in and around Sarajevo are intended to do just that.” The fears of violence are not unfounded in the Balkans, where homophobia is a shared prejudice regardless of ethnicity. At Serbia’s first public Gay Pride march in 2001, activists were pelted with stones and beaten up by several hundred ultra-nationalist skinheads in the streets of Belgrade before the attacks were quelled by riot police.

[The Associated Press yesterday reported that Serbian police say nationalists have attacked a gay gathering, injuring three people, including a US citizen. Police official Slobodan Vukelic said yesterday that two attackers have been detained. Human rights groups say masked assailants targeted the so-called Queer Festival held Friday in a cultural center in downtown Belgrade. The groups report that an unidentified American citizen suffered a concussion and broken arm. The statement adds that two female activists were also injured.]

In a sermon during Ramadan’s first Friday prayers, the leader of Bosnia’s Islamic community, Mustafa Ceric, called the festival a “provocation,” while urging tolerance among the faithful. “In line with the message of peace we are sending both to those with whom we agree and those with whom we disagree on moral issues, we should also be left to live in peace, free to practice our religion and to respect our moral values,” said Ceric.

A 2007 United Nations report classified sexual minorities as among the most marginalized groups in Bosnia, where a gender equality law prohibits discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. But the Queer Festival organizer, the Q Association, stressed that support of groups like Amnesty and the OSCE is founded on concerns that minority rights are not the only thing at stake. “There is (also) the issue of civil liberties. This is a secular state,” says the association’s Svetlana Djurkovic. “Our plan was not to provoke. Had we understood during the planning phase that the festival will fall during Ramadan, we would have probably rescheduled.”