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Read, Debate: Engage.
| topic: | Discrimination |
|---|---|
| located: | Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia |
| editor: | Katarina Panić |
One of the most popular web portals in Bosnia, BUKA, published a video titled “Hejt SLOVEni” as part of a campaign against hate speech. The name comes from “Hej, Sloveni” (meaning ‘Hey, Slavs’) - the national anthem of former Yugoslavia, which was split after a series of wars into seven countries. Four of them (Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro) speak the same language under different names, and so the campaign had exploded regionally.
“More than ten million people have reached it, and more than 30 media have produced their content based on the campaign”, Aleksandar Trifunović, BUKA’s editor-in-chief, said in an address to a seminar at the Council of Europe and the European Union’s project called “Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Media in Bosnia and Herzegovina (JUFREX)” last week in Sarajevo.
In the video, Serbian actress Hristina Popović, Croatian singer Severina and Croatian actor Goran Bogdan play a scene in the supermarket. Through a smile, kindly and in a friendly tone, they tell each other the most offensive racial and religious slurs.
“The video certainly has produced a dilemma among viewers. I had it too: is it proper to fight against the hate speech by using it, and using it to such an extent,” Borka Rudić of the BH Journalists Association said while moderating the seminar.
“You can not fight the virus unless you put it in the vaccine. So, we thought the same for hate speech. Extraordinary director from Croatia Predrag Ličina and all the participants are on the top of their careers, and they took a huge risk by being involved. Yet, the video ended with the cathartic part, with clear condemnation,” Trifunović of BUKA added.
Hate speech most often targets ethnic, religious and LGBTI groups, as well as migrants and people who are on the move. The Press Council in Bosnia and Herzegovina received 160 complaints on hate speech this year, the majority being comments of various online users and two related to media content.
“Politicians generate the hate speech. They misuse the lack of the proper legislative to harm the rivals so that we have twice as many complaints during the pre-election period than overage,” Dženana Burek from the Press Council said.
“One friend of mine told me he was sick of the video. We aim people get sick of the hate speech because we see the whole new generation thinking the hate speech is a rather charming way of communication,” Trifunović concluded.
Image: Andraz P.
