Being a fighter for human rights and truth in a country with fresh wounds that still have blood from a recent war is, in the least, dangerous. Nikola Kuridža, a young activist of the Center Kvart from Prijedor, realized this in the most brutal way.
All the complaints and requests sent to the Ethical Committee, all the students’ and civil society’s warnings were devaluated. Another punch was set to the high education of Canton Sarajevo by enabling people who actively violate human rights of minorities to create education policies. Once more, the message has been sent that LGBTI students of all UNSA faculties have no place there.
PRESS RELEASE The IDAHOT campaign starts today: LOVE MAKES A FAMILY Today, on the 3 May, on the occasion of the International Day Against Homophobia/Biphobia/Transphobia (IDAHOT) we launch the Sarajevo Open Centre’s campaign called LOVE MAKES A FAMILY. The campaign includes two different media: billboards and social media. By its concept the campaign draws … Continued
Bullying is a specific form of violent or other negative behavior of young people. It includes verbal and physical violence, social isolation, sexual harassment, and some forms of economic violence such as theft or extortion. Statistics on this problem are devastating, especially when it comes to bullying of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans* and intersex (hereinafter: LGBTI) children.
The Coalition for the fight against hate speech and hate crimes strongly condemns the homophobic attack on UDIK activists, and warns that the practice of not processing the attacks on LGBTI persons, activists that we witness since 2008 until this day is a shame for the BiH institutions, and should be stopped. We ask the police and judiciary of Canton Sarajevo to, in an adequate and timely manner, react, investigate and process this hate crime, threats and attacks on LGBTI activists that have already been reported during 2015 and 2016, and, before that, the attack on Merlinka Festival in 2014.
Upon successful completion of the fifth International queer film festival „Merlinka“ that went by peacefully, with dignity and no incidents, with high number of police officers and security, we want to remind the public of the devastating fact – the lack of prosecution of the attack perpetrators during the Festival Merlinka, on 1 February 2014.
On the second day of Merlinka Festival, held on 28th of January in Art Cinema Kriterion, panel discussion named Our personal is political too was held. Naida Kučukalić was moderating the discussion and participants were Nera Mešinović (activist from B&H), Nina Đurđević (photographer from Croatia) and Marino Sorel i Entity from Croatian queer art group House of Flamingo. Aim of discussion was to answer the questions of coming out in conservative and homophobic society, and in what way individual activism changes the status quo that many LGBT people are forced to accept.
Since 2005, May 17 has been marked as the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia. This day is marked in more than 130 countries in the world, and officially recognized by many countries and institutions, including the European Parliament.
Round table on the topic ‘Good practices and policies in the fight against homophobia’ was held in Sarajevo, on June 20, 2013 and it opened a discussion on the state of human rights of LGBT persons in BiH between the representatives of state institutions and human rights civil society organisations. The round table is one … Continued