PISMO ISLAMSKE ZAJEDNICE BOSNJAKA U KANADI PREDSJEDNIKU UNIVERZITETA U VANKUVERU

The letter of the Bosniak Islamic Community in Canada to University of British Columbia

February 24, 2011

Office of the President
The University of British Columbia
6328 Memorial Road
Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z2
Email address: presidents.office@ubc.ca

Dear Professor Stephen J. Toope,

The Bosniak Islamic Community in Canada is extremely concerned that the notorious Srdja Trifkovic is to be provided with a platform at the University of British Columbia for his toxic views aimed at encouraging ethnic and religious intolerance in Europe and North America.

Srdja Trifkovic is an expatriate Serb who hates Muslims to the extent of being willing to act as the spokesperson for the perpetrators of genocide. He was media relations adviser to the secessionist Bosnian Serb Government at the time it was conducting the mass executions of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in July 1995. He admitted to the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague that he was closeted with the inner circle of the Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic while atrocities were being organised and carried out by the Bosnian Serb army commanded by General Ratko Mladic.

Srdja Trifkovic has spent those two decades challenging the findings of international courts that the criminal conspiracy with which he was associated committed “a terrible crime – the worst on European soil since the Second World War”, as the United Nations Secretary General described it, the genocidal murder of more than 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica. Now, not content with denying genocide, Trifkovic has brought his campaign of hatred against Muslims across the Atlantic as he tours the college circuit encouraging distrust, prejudice and ethnic intolerance.

The Bosniak Islamic Community in Canada speaks out not just on behalf the victims of genocide in Bosnia but on behalf of all victims of genocide, wherever and whoever they are.

We hope you will be that voice of reason for those who lie buried in the ground, and stand up for their human rights and deny Srdjan Trifkovic a podium for his message.
We thank you for your attention and trust that you will do the right thing for those who lost their lives in Srebrenica’s genocide.

Imam Tajib Pasanbegovic
Head Imam of the Bosniak Islamic Community in Canada