Muslim Bosnian Protest Awarding Nobel Prize to Peter Handke

Sarajevo, MINA – Several dozen Muslim survivors of the 1992-95 Bosnian war protested in Sarajevo, urging the Nobel Committee to overturn its decision to award the 2019 Nobel Prize for Literature to Austrian writer, Peter Handke.

Protesters gathered outside the Swedish embassy in downtown Sarajevo on Tuesday, November 5, carrying banners with slogans comparing Handke to Serb war criminals Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb war-time leaders Radovan Karadzic, and Ratko Mladic.

The three former Serb leaders were tried for genocide before the UN war crimes tribunal. Milosevic died in 2006 before the end of his trial, while Karadzic and Mladic were sentenced to life imprisonment, Thus quoted from Daily Sabah on Wednesday.

The protesters raised Handke’s photos when he was in Srebrenica in the summer of 1996 reading “Giving Handke the same award as supporting war crimes.”

Murat Tahirovic, chairman of the Association of Witnesses and Victims of Genocide, urged Swedish Academy to withdraw the award, Balkan Insight reported.

The association said its members would continue to gather every Tuesday until December 10, when gifts would be given to Handke.

Handke, a 76-year-old writer, has long faced criticism for strongly defending Serbia during the 1990s war that destroyed Balkans when Yugoslavia was divided.

He even spoke at Milosevic’s funeral in 2006. He is a great admirer of the former Serbian leader, who died in an international court in The Hague when tried for war crimes and genocide. (T/Sj/P2)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)