Hate Crimes in Bosnia: Under-Reported and Rarely Prosecuted

Hodzic's assailant, Renato Marjanovic, filmed the incident. The video, which Marjanovic posted on Facebook but later removed, showed him telling his Bosniak victim: "Now, say aloud that you ask the Bosnian Serbs for forgiveness and say that you respect Republika Srpska and [Bosnian Serb political leader] Milorad Dodik."

Marjanovic was arrested on March 12, and police in Prijedor confirmed that he was being investigated on suspicion of committing the criminal offence of abuse, torture or other inhumane and humiliating treatment.

But the fact that the incident was not classified as a hate-motivated crime has caused concern among post-war returnees in the country - as well as raising the question of whether hate crimes are being properly investigated.

Hodzic said he had never met Marjanovic before that day, and that he cannot explain what sparked the attack.

"First, I was in shock that he was asking me to remove the Bosnian emblem, I thought it was some weird joke… then he attacked me, from behind," he told BIRN.

Mirsad Duratovic, a local councillor in Prijedor, said that he will file an official request to Republika Srpska's Interior Ministry, asking for the offence to be reclassified as a hate crime.

"This attack was motivated by hate, it was based on national [ethnic], racial and religious hatred, and we, Bosniak officials in Prijedor, had a joint meeting at which this request was one of the main conclusions," Duratovic told BIRN.

Republika Srpska's Interior Ministry did not respond to BIRN's inquiries about the issue by the time of publication.

Shortly after the coat-of-arms incident, Alen Dzindo, another post-war returnee in Vlasenica, a municipality in eastern Republika Srpska, said that his family had discovered...