Closing of the questions on ethnic/national origin shall not pass!
On the occasion of the more severe political pressures that the census form gets back to the old form, with closed questions on ethnic / national origin, religion and mother tongue, the Coalition against the constitutional discrimination “Equality” bespeak to the Council of Ministers that the pressures must not take precedence over the rights of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. All citizens of our state have the right for equal treatment regardless of their ethnic / national origin, and one should not deny them the right to freely express themselves.
We advised the Council of Ministers, which at this point are Vjekoslav Bevanda, Zlatko Lagumdzija, Nikola Spiric, Damir Hadzic, Zekerijah Osmic, Fahrudin Radoncic, Sredoje Novic, Barisa Colak, Mirko Sarovic and Damir Ljubic, that we will in every possible manner, call to responsability Minister who support the return of discriminatory forms Questionnaire.
This action will be understood as a direct attack on the citizens of BiH, who do not belong to constituent peoples and to openly rallying to anticitizen and antidemocratic policies that are contrary to the European practice, and with the universal standards of human rights.
The original form of the census form was changed, because of its discriminatory character, as a result of the reaction of civil society and relevant international bodies such as Eurostat, which had, without exception, in its recommendations identified that sensitive question like these should not be placed in a restrictive and discriminatory way. It is completely unacceptable in a democratic society that the achieved solution, which provides a minimum of respect for human rights and democratic standards, simply abolishes by the the arbitrary decision of the executive government, and that instead of it installs a solution that will re-establish discrimination directed directly against those citizens that don’t identify with one of the three constituent peoples.
There is no single reason for returning the process back, besides the political pressures coming from various interest groups within the political elite of the constituent peoples, that is, parties with a national prefix. These groups have repeatedly shown that they see census exclusively as a ground for future manipulation of the census results for political purposes, which had at the different levels threatened and slowed down the process of European integration. If them now the Council of Ministers joins, as the highest executive institutions, Bosnia and Herzegovina will again become the victim of another obstruction to European integration processes, and implement the basic standards of human rights.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country that aspires to membership in the European Union, can not afford another flagrant departure from the practice in EU member states, Eurostat’s recommendation, but also the interest of its own citizens. Each minister who let that will clearly show that he does not care about the rights of those Bosnians who are already victims of constitutional discrimination in this country, nor to the European way of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Coalition EQUALITY