BAN HARUN HODŽIĆ FROM VISITING SREBRENICA

SREBRENICA, JULY 30 /SRNA/ – Branimir Kojić, the head of the Srebrenica municipal Organisation of Families of Captured, Fallen Soldiers and Missing Civilians, called it a shameful and brazen decision to allow Islamist radical Harun Hodžić to come to Srebrenica and give a lecture on Saturday, August 2.

Kojić stated that Hodžić has a highly questionable wartime past and was a member and one of the commanders in three different units during the war. "A man who advocates for children to be trained in handling weapons and to possess them will certainly not be coming here to give a lecture on peace and tolerance," Kojić told SRNA. He highlights that it is telling that the director of the Srebrenica Cultural Centre Dželaldina Nukić is publicly known for hitting and running a Serb boy with her car several years ago. "Her husband is also known to the public for being arrested after posting a picture on social media with the caption `Hornets ready to attack,`" Kojić added. Kojić stated that people like Hodžić do not belong in Republika Srpska, especially not in Srebrenica. "Let them promote their beliefs and lectures far away from us and our children," he said. He also notes that representatives of organisations originating from the Defensive-Patriotic War had requested police to ban the public gathering. "We know the wartime background of Harun efendi Hodžić, as well as the views he promotes, including the belief that Bosniak children should be trained to handle firearms and possess them," reads the letter sent to the Srebrenica Police Station by organisations stemming from the Defensive-Patriotic war. The request stresses that Hodžić's potential lecture could provoke negative consequences in the town itself and further deepen already strained interethnic relations. "We consider this lecture a direct disruption of peace in Srebrenica and an incitement of religious, national, and other forms of intolerance," the request says. Kojić warns that if no action is taken, the submitters of the request will gather and prevent the event themselves. He also urged Serb councilors in the Municipal Assembly to dismiss Nukić from her position, stating that they share responsibility since they recently appointed her. Harun Hodžić, an imam and former member of the 7th Muslim Brigade, is publicly associated with a series of brutal crimes in central Bosnia. In 2023, during a lecture in a mosque in Nemila near Zenica, accompanied by informal Wahhabi leader Nezim Halilović, he compared BiH to Gaza and said that "shooting clubs should be turned into an army". "Every child should be trained in marksmanship, not to threaten anyone, but with one goal: to prevent another Gaza," Hodžić said, adding that retired members of the so-called Army of BiH should be brought into hunting associations and alcohol drinkers expelled. He also thanked God that BiH has enough shooting clubs and said he was preparing a pistol as a wedding gift for his daughter. Dželaldina Nukić, a councilor from the Democratic Front in the Srebrenica Municipal Assembly, hit and run a minor pedestrian boy in 2022. Her husband, Sadmir Nukić, posted photos on Facebook in 2020 showing two little girls holding rocket launchers on their shoulders with the caption: "Srebrenica rocket launchers ready to attack." During a police search of the Nukić family home, officers found a Glock 19 pistol and two fired rocket launchers. The Srebrenica Cultural Centre has announced a lecture by Hodžić on Saturday, August 2, titled "The Power of Faith and Identity in Times of Injustice," followed by a screening of the film Where the Olives Cry.