Milorad Dodik. Photo: BIRN.
The Basic Court in Banja Luka has ruled that Milorad Dodik, then president of Republika Srpska, discriminated against LGBTQ+ people on several occasions in March 2023, according to the Sarajevo Open Centre, an LGBTQ+ rights organisation, which has obtained a copy of the verdict.
The court ruled that Dodik’s rhetoric at public events was discriminatory on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and sexual characteristics, which resulted in the creation of a hostile and offensive environment, said the Sarajevo Open Centre.
The ruling noted that as Dodik held of the highest position in the Serb-led entity of Bosnia at the time, his statements had public significance and social impact.
The first-instance judgment can be appealed.
Dodik also condemned LBGTQ+ people before and after the Pride parade that was planned to be held in Banja Luka in 2023.
“All activists of that group should be banned from propagating such things in schools, such content should be removed from textbooks, and we should even try to see how to regulate it through [social] networks because the presence of such content is increasingly expanding and I think that it pollutes the public space and the social space, and I think it should be eliminated,” he said.
Dodik added that although he was “against those people, i.e. what they are propagating [in public]”, they were always free to move somewhere else. “You have places, islands in the world where this is normal – go ahead, move there, live there,” he said.
Before the planned Pride parade in Banja Luka, several LGBTQ+ activists were attacked. Republika Srpska police banned the event on security grounds. The organisers accused Dodik and Banja Luka’s mayor of stoking hatred.
Sarajevo Open Centre on Monday welcomed the verdict, saying it was symbolic, but also a step forward and a reminder that no one should be above the law.
“It is significant that the courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina are increasingly applying the principle that no politician, regardless of the position they hold, has no unlimited right to freedom of expression if such statements violate the right to equal treatment of LGBTI people or any other minority or vulnerable social group or individual,” Sarajevo Open Center said.
Dodik was ousted from the Republika Srpska presidency last year after being convicted by the state court of disobeying decisions of the High Representative, the international overseer of the peace deal that ended the 1992-5 Bosnian war.
