Second ‘Pink Report’ by Bosnia and Herzegovina Released

“Pink Report: Annual Report on the Human Rights Situation of LGBT Persons in BiH in 2012” has been released in Sarajevo.

 

A second Pink Report has been published bySarajevo Open Centre. It is the annual report on the situation of the human rights of LGBT people. The Report for 2012 gives an overview of the situation in the areas in which the violations of the human rights of the LGBT persons happen the most: Hate crime, hate speech, freedom of association, expression and assembly, discrimination, media and education.

 

An appendix to this year’s Pink Report are the accomplishments of Sarajevo Open Centre in 2012 achieved through advocacy of rights of LGBT persons, promotion of the human rights of LGBT persons in culture and media and the support for the LGBT persons.

 

Throughout 2012, as LGBT topics have become more visible in BiH through the media coverage, which is still mostly sensational and shocking in order to attract the viewers, and through the work of organisations working on LGBT human rights and activists, hate speech and hate crimes aimed at LGBT people have become more evident as well. The increased visibility of LGBT activism in 2012 was followed by hate speech on web portals, which became even more severe and threatening.

 

In all the cases presented in this report, the response of the authorities was either non-existent or insufficient, and in some of the cases the perpetrators of the incidents were officials. Authorities consistently fail or refuse to condemn the hate speech and intolerance aimed at LGBT persons or to sanction the perpetrators, which leads to the lack of trust of LGBT persons have in governmental institutions. This lack of trust results in LGBT persons not reporting more serious incidents and cases such as discrimination and hate crimes.

 

The first step to better recognition and protection of the rights of LGBT per­sons is the harmonisation of existing legislation with the Anti-discrimination law of BiH. This was supposed to be done by 2010, but has not yet been com­pleted. Beside this, the Pink report suggests two priority measures: introduction of adequate hate crime regulation in criminal law of Federation of BiH andestablishing adequate procedures of document replacement and identity number change for transexual persons who have undegone sex reassignment which will be the same on all country levels.