Help us raise alarm around the danger of screening ultranationalist propaganda across

 

Dear Mayor of Toronto

Dear Mayor of Hamilton

Dear Mayor of London

Dear Mayor of Niagara Falls

Dear Mayor of Vancouver 

Dear Mayor of Ottawa

Dear Mayor of Kitchener

 

As community leaders and representatives of several leading community organizations of the Bosnian diaspora in North America, we write to you to seek your support in condemning and urging the cancelation of the screening of Boris Malagurski’s controversial film “Srpska: The Struggle for Freedom” in your city.

The 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia) was the most violent armed conflict on European soil since the end of World War II. During the Bosnian war, the entire world witnessed daily atrocities, war crimes and genocide committed by Bosnian Serb police and military forces in the name of Republika Srpska (RS). Following the war, almost all of the high ranking RS government, police and military officials were convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia in the Hague.  The film “Srpska: The Struggle for Freedom” is another attempt at revisionist history, as it seeks to redeem and glorify RS, which was founded on war crimes, genocide and ultranationalism.

The film distorts historical facts by suggesting that Bosnia and the U.S. “opened the gates of conflict” in the Western Balkans in the 1990’s, while showing RS as the victim in a “struggle for freedom.” Furthermore, the film’s narrative attempts to portray the extermination of “Muslims in Bosnia” (i.e., Bosniaks) to make space for Serbs as a morality tale, avenging centuries of perceived injustices at the hands of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires.  These falsehoods are a deceitful attempt at “othering” (since Bosniaks are indigenous, European people) and silently introduce radical, revisionist and ultranationalist ideas to Americans across our nation. 

Furthermore, as noted above, RS was founded on war crimes, genocide and Serb ultranationalism, which is rampant in the Western Balkans and is slowly spreading across Europe and the rest of the world. It is important to note that Serb ultranationalist ideology inspired the Christchurch shooting in New Zealand, the first ever live streamed mass shooting, which in turn inspired a string of other mass shootings around the world, including the recent Buffalo, New York mass shooting. We are facing unprecedented levels of radicalization in the U.S., as evidenced by the January 6^th insurrection in the nation’s capital. Allowing the screening of this film across the U.S. and Canada poses a potential threat to all of our communities, as well as national security. Many of us who lived through the Bosnian war, and have seen this before, have seen that films such as this are created as propaganda to inspire hatred, radicalization and a new generation of ultranationalists.

Finally, the title “Srpska: The Struggle for Freedom” is highly manipulative and misleading. As already noted, the highest levels of the RS government, including the RS military and police, were convicted of implementing a systemic and systematic program of terror, war crimes, rape and genocide over non-Serb populations in Bosnia, which included Bosniaks, Croats, Jews, Roma and others.  Thus, while Mr. Malagurski states that the film “denounces all war crimes that took place in the Bosnian war of the 1990s,” the title of his film nevertheless misleadingly attempts to “whitewash” rape, war crimes and genocide and commence revisionist attempts to falsely label such actions as a “struggle for freedom.”

Given the above stated facts, we are almost certain that venues in your city have been misled by Mr. Malagurski and his team with respect to the contents of his film. We strongly believe that anyone who is familiar with the history of RS would never support the screening of this film, as evidenced by the fact that its screening was quickly halted across most of Europe. As such, we urge you to join us and over 35,000 people who have signed an online petition to ban the screening of this controversial film. We call on you to stand on the right side of history, to stand with those who truly struggled for their freedom from oppression in the 1990s and urge for cancellation of the screening of this revisionist and inflammatory propaganda in your city.  

 

Institute for Research of Genocide Canada

Congress of Bosnians of North America

Working Group for Bosnia and Herzegovina

 

 

We write urgently regarding the scheduled screenings of the film, “Republika Srpksa: Struggle for Freedom.” The film, ostensibly labeled as a documentary, is in fact a revisionist propaganda movie that negates the genocide and ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The film has been denounced worldwide by non-profit organizations and community leaders, and screenings of the film has been cancelled at multiple venues throughout Europe. However, the film is now scheduled to be screened [throughout the United States and Canada OR add specific location]. Over 35,000 individuals have already signed a petition protesting the screenings, and we respectfully urge you to take immediate action to condemn and cancel the screenings in your community.

Between 1992 and 1995, Bosnian Serb forces, in the name of Republika Srpska (RS), committed the largest campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Europe since World War II. Over 100,000 individuals were killed, and countless others were raped, maimed or held prisoner in concentration camps the likes of which Europe had not seen since the Holocaust. In one incident alone, over 8,000 Muslim boys and men were slaughtered in and around Srebrenica in what is widely recognized as one of the worst acts of genocide in modern history. Furthermore, millions of individuals were forced to flee their homes as refugees due to the deliberate acts of ethnic cleansing committed by Serb forces. There is no dispute that RS was founded on ultra-nationalistic ambitions and ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs. Indeed, the International Court of Justice in The Hague has convicted numerous Bosnian Serb leaders of war crimes. Moreover, to this day the leaders of RS continue to deny the war crimes and genocide in Srebrenica, despite the international community’s consensus on this issue, as well as international court rulings and various independent reports. 

“Republika Srpksa: Struggle for Freedom,” directed and produced by Serbian Canadian filmmaker Boris Malagurski, presents a historical revisionism of the atrocities committed in Bosnia and Hercegovina and misleadingly re-characterizes the violent founding of RS as a well-meaning struggle for freedom. In doing so, the film humiliates the victims of the war crimes, many of whom personally experienced these crimes and came to this country as refugees. Unfortunately, this type of nationalistic revisionism is part of an international rise in nationalism that threatens the foundations of democracy and truth. 

For these reasons, we urge that you take immediate action to condemn and cancel the promotion of this film. Thank you for your consideration. 

 

 

 

 

We are writing to you to express our profound alarm at the announced release of former Russia Today host Boris Malagurski's genocide relativist film, *Republika Sepska: The Struggle for Freedom", in the United States. The director has announced scheduled screenings of the film, starting on 17 March, in your cities.

There are two principal reasons why screenings of this film are akin to the propagation of hate speech against the Bosnian people. First and foremost, the film reimagines the crimes against humanity found by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to have been committed by Serb forces against the Bosnian people (1992-1995), including the Srebrenica Genocide, as a "fight against slavery" and a "struggle for freedom"

As a result of the ICTY judgements on Serb-committed crimes in northern and eastern Bosnia during the Bosnian War, we know that the political entity called Republika Srpska was founded on atrocities and crimes against humanity. The ICTY judges have also concluded that members of the Serb forces used rape as a weapon of war in order to spread terror. The judges of the ICTY trial Kvocka et al. asserted that the concentration camps of Omarska, Keraterm and Tmopolje in northwester Bosnia were sites of an "orgy of hellish persecution".

This is the genocidal founding of the "Republika Srpska* which Boris Malagurski reimagines as a "struggle for freedom" in his film.

This film is a continuation of the genocide relativism and historical revisionism upon which Boris Malagurski has built his career. In 2017, Boris Malagurski described the annual commemoration of the Srebrenica Genocide as a "fest" during his TV show on Sputnik's Serbian network. Today, he seeks to spread the same relativist propaganda in the United States.

The history that ties together the American and Bosnian people is one forged in humanitarianism and the defense of truth.

It was the United States who, among other nations, offered her staff and expertise to the ICTY in order to facilitate a path towards justice for Bosnia's victims. It is the United States which has, for the last thirty years, become a cherished home for the next generation of Bosnians. It is to the United States that, today, we look for much needed solidarity.

Taking all of the above into consideration, we implore you to use all possible platforms to condemn the upcoming screenings of "Republika Srpska: The Struggle for Freedom" in the US.

We implore you to express your solidarity, lest the Bosnian victims of 1992-1995 died in vain.