SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — The European Union on Thursday urged authorities within the Serb-controlled half of Bosnia to at once withdraw a draft legislation that manufacturers non-profit teams funded from overseas as “international brokers.”
The legislation is to be adopted by the Bosnian Serb parliament at a session beginning subsequent Tuesday. The meeting is dominated by lawmakers who’re near the mini-state’s separatist pro-Russian chief Milorad Dodik.
Critics say the draft legislation resembles an analogous one adopted by the Russian Duma on the eve of the Russian aggression towards Ukraine.
The EU “strongly calls upon all members of the Republika Srpska Nationwide Meeting to oppose this draft legislation, which goals to intimidate and suppress civil society organizations by branding their representatives as international brokers,” a press release mentioned.
The Bosnian Serb parliament final month handed a legislation recriminalizing libel. Critics say the legislation restricts freedom of expression and silences crucial media.
The transfer has had “a chilling impact on free speech in Republika Srpska,” the EU assertion mentioned, including that by adopting the brand new draft legislation, the Bosnian Serb mini-state would come nearer to the authoritarian regimes as an alternative of the European household.
The Serb-dominated entity in Bosnia and the one run by the nation’s Bosniaks, who’re largely Muslim, and Croats, had been fashioned after a 1992-95 struggle that left 100,000 individuals useless and hundreds of thousands homeless.
Bosnian Serb chief Dodik has repeatedly threatened to proclaim independence of the Serb-controlled half of Bosnia and be a part of the territory with neighboring Serbia. There are widespread fears that Russia, performing by means of its ally Serbia, is making an attempt to destabilize the Balkan area to shift at lest a number of the worldwide consideration from its aggression on Ukraine.
