PRESS RELEASE, September 29, 2026

CIVIL – Center for Freedom strongly condemns the threats, pressures, and police intimidation directed at the Srebrenica – Potočari Memorial Center and its director, Emir Suljagić. Announcements of possible raids by special police forces into an institution that guards the memory of the victims of the genocide are not only absolutely unacceptable but also deeply disturbing for the entire region and the democratic world.

The denial of the Srebrenica genocide – in itself – is a crime. It is an act of continuous violence against the victims, their families, and the historical truth unequivocally established and confirmed by international courts. Denial is the final stage of genocide. But when intimidation is added to this denial, it crosses into a dangerous phase of active institutional persecution.

It is particularly terrifying, paradoxical, and utterly hypocritical that these pressures come precisely from an institution – the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Republika Srpska – whose primary and legal obligation is to care for the safety and security of all citizens. Instead of being a guarantor of peace, the police apparatus is evidently being used as an instrument to instill fear, for political pressure, and as an attempt to silence those who unwaveringly speak the truth. Using institutional power to intimidate the guardians of memory is a characteristic of anti-democratic and revisionist policies that have no place in modern Europe.

The Srebrenica Memorial Center is a global beacon of remembrance, the gravest warning to humanity, and a bastion against oblivion. Therefore, any attack on the Center or its employees is a direct attack on fundamental civilizational values and human rights.

Peace and stability in the Balkans are possible exclusively through honestly facing the past and taking responsibility, not through its violent revision and erasure. We call for a strong, unambiguous international reaction and regional solidarity. Institutions, media, and civil society have a moral obligation to stand in defense of the Srebrenica Memorial Center.

The truth cannot be silenced. Memory cannot be erased by a police boot. CIVIL’s support for the Srebrenica Memorial Center and for all those who uncompromisingly stand on the ramparts of justice is full and unwavering.

CIVIL – Center for Freedom

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