DIRECTOR OF SREBRENICA MEMORIAL CENTER EMIR SULJAGIĆ ANNOUNCED THAT THEY RECEIVED AS MANY AS 1,900 THREATENING MESSAGES IN LAST SEVEN DAYS

SARAJEVO, MAY 3 (ONASA) – The director of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, Emir Suljagić, announced that they had received as many as 1,900 threatening messages in the last seven days.
“The Srebrenica Memorial Center received at least 1900 messages and tweets of threats, denial of victims, provocations and glorification of war criminals, in the last 7 days from fake and real profiles on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We responded to all of this by talking about the victims, focusing on the families’ stories, and working to prevent hate speech and populism on this important issue.
Why? Because the most important thing we are working on is the education of the generations to come. On this path, there is no “competition” of great world tragedies, genocides and crimes, we have no fear of talking about history in its entirety. That’s what others are afraid of. In fact, perhaps the most important thing for me to share with you is what do we teach children when we teach them about Srebrenica? What do we explain to them when they come from the bus for one-day excursions to this city?”, he stated in the announcement.
Then he added:
“We teach them what hatred can produce. We teach them that words have consequences. We teach them that the existence of a political and military apparatus of power can very quickly and very efficiently destroy entire communities. It interrupts lives, plans, families, destroys homes, stops stories, interrupts memories. We teach them that the silent consent of the majority is enough for that, and that from that moment on, things happen very quickly and almost unstoppably. We tell them about how Bosniak returnees live today in Srebrenica, Bratunac, eastern Bosnia. We tell them how their peers manage in an educational system that denies their identity, history and tradition. We tell them about the courage of women in our society, we explain to them how important it is to build a society of equality, tolerance and peace.
We work with them to be brave, strong and loud. That they know how to point out injustice, that they know how to recognize the first signs of hatred – which can give birth to new “Srebrenica” tomorrow. We want to convey that to the whole world. We want to share the lessons from the nineties with the communities in other places, at least where it is not too late”.
At the end, he stated that this is not just a story about Srebrenica, but about proving the truth.
“So, this story is not just a story about Srebrenica, about us proving the truth, or persistently going back to 1995. We proved the facts in the courts. What we are talking about before the UN is an effort to make Srebrenica an example and a warning for others.
I know you are tired. I know that the story of Srebrenica has been filling the front pages for almost two months now. But we’re not the ones making the covers. This has been made a topic by those who do not want children and future generations to learn something from our examples. Let’s complete this chapter together, wrote Suljagić.