If Census questions close, the only option will be a boycott of the Census!

Decision about the form of the question about ethnic/national and religious self-assertion, and about mother language on census form, represents one of the most important decisions of the validate and legitimacy of the upcoming census in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Coalition ” Equality ” strongly condemns the irresponsible behaviour of the Council of Ministers, which had with the conclusions from the last session avoided to take responsibility for this decision and passed it to the Agency for Statistics of the BiH. f such irresponsibility led to the closure of the census questions the only option would be boycott of the discriminatory census.

Continuing with the non-transparent management of this process, the Council of the Ministers has just acquaint to the public that they ordered Agency to select the form of the sensitive questions in ” accordance with the constitutional and and statutory provisions.”

Since the Constitution and laws in BiH do not contain any provision on the form of these questions
on the list, such statement can be understood only as misleading the public, which is even more obvious just by that the Council of Ministers in its instructions to the Agency did not recall to the recommendations of the EUROSTAT, the application of good practice in European countries, even up to now received recommendations of the International observation Mission.

Also, so far The Council of Ministers didn’t announced two recent reports of the international monitoring mission, in an apparent attempt to hide from the public eye all the finds that this independent body had on the process of organizing and conducting the trial census list.

Given all the above,the suspicion are justified that such conduct is a result of political pressures to return to discriminatory Filling the form and the overture to “shut down” the sensitive questions contrary to all international recommendations. Therefore, it inevitably causes doubt about the good intentions of all the actors involved, and the question arises whether they try to create in this way conditions for the manipulation of the census “Results”.

We emphasize that we will, in the case of closing the Questionnaire on sensitive issues, all members of the Council of Ministers held personally responsible for direct discrimination of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that we’ll be forced to call upon the citizens to boycott the upcoming census and that on the next elections withhold their vote to all parties from which the current ministers in the Council of Ministers come from.

We urge the Agency for Statistics, headed by Mr. Zdenko Milinovic, to respect the Constitution
of the BiH, while making decision, which is an integral part of the European Convention on Human Rights and Civil Liberties, which strongly condemns and prohibits all forms of discrimination;
recommendations of the EUROSTAT and the International observation missions and European practices in the implementation of the list, and that these questions in accordance with all of the above, is to leave them completely open.

We call the Council of Ministers to take responsibility for these processes, to urgently publish the report of the International observation mission, attempt to stop discrimination in the census matters and not to play with European future of Bosnia and Herzegovina by ignoring European standards and bringing into question the legitimacy of the population in the BiH.

In the end, we call all officials of the European Union in BiH to do everything what is in their power to ensure the protection of human rights and democratic standards in the context of the implementation of the Census, and to endeavor that with the money of the European taxpayers, that was invested in the Census in BiH, doesn’t finance the discrimination of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.