Latest news with #MuslimBosniak
DW
2 days ago
- Politics
- DW
Germany updates: Interior minister downplays coalition spat – DW – 07/12/2025
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt described the postponement of judicial appointments as normal, saying he cannot understand accusations of damage being done to Germany's top court. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt on Saturday described a postponed Bundestag vote on judicial appointments as normal. Critics within the ruling coalition have accused the CDU/CSU of "dismantling democratic institutions." A vote was abruptly cancelled Friday after the CDU/CSU withdrew support for an SPD candidate. from Bonn Following the pause, DW resumes its coverage of news and analysis from Germany. On Saturday, Germany awaits news from Paris, where the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO is expected to decide whether to grant World Heritage status to the castles of Neuschwanstein, Herrenchiemsee, and Linderhof, as well as the royal residence on Schachen Mountain in Upper Bavaria. Stay tuned for more, and we hope you enjoy reading! It's just past midnight here in Germany, so we're pausing our coverage for now and will resume early in the morning. Thousands of Bosnians gather at a cemetery near Srebrenica to mark the 30th anniversary of a massacre in which more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys were executed by Bosnian Serb forces during a 1992-5 war. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video German comedian Sebastian Hotz will have to go to court in relation to social media posts he made about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. The Berlin public prosecutor's office charges that Hotz, who is also known as "El Hotzo," condoned and rewarded criminal offences. His trial is scheduled to begin on July 23 at the Tiergarten district court in Berlin. Hotz deleted the posts on X, but screenshots soon began to circulate. In one comment, he suggested a similarity between a "last bus" and then presidential candidate Trump, writing that "unfortunately" both had been "just missed." In another, Hotz said: "I think it's absolutely fantastic when fascists die." In the wake of the scandal, regional public broadcaster RBB ended its collaboration with Hotz on a youth program. Soon after, national public broadcaster ARD Kultur canceled a literary event with him. Christina Block, heiress to Germany's Block House steakhouse chain, went on trial in Hamburg on Friday accused of ordering the violent kidnapping of her two youngest children. Block is standing trial alongside her partner, former television sports presenter Gerhard Delling, and several other alleged accomplices accused of snatching the children from their father in Denmark. Find out more about the high-profile case. Hasan Hasanovic lost his twin brother and father in the Srebrenica genocide in 1995. Now, he has made it his life's work to document the deadliest massacre in Europe since World War II. Today, one of Hasanovic most important projects has to do with building an archive with video footage of survivors of the genocide telling their stories. It is unique and the most important record of what happened 30 years ago. Read more about his life and work here. Vivian Spohr, the wife of Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr, said she was "at the complete disposal" of Italian judicial authorities following the death of a 24-year-old woman who was struck by a vehicle in the Italian island of Sardinia. Local media reported that the 24-year-old died from serious head injuries after she was struck by a vehicle at a crosswalk on Tuesday, with Spohr reportedly at the wheel. Gaia Costa, the victim, was from from Tempio Pausania, in the Gallura region of northern Sardinia. She died at the scene of accident in in Porto Cervo in northern Sardinia. In a statement issued by her Italian lawyer on Friday, the 51-year-old German businesswoman expressed "dismay and deep sorrow for this grave accident, which has devastated a family, the town of Tempio, and the entire community of Gallura." The statement added that Spohr places herself "at the complete disposal of the Italian judicial authorities for the necessary investigations and, while aware that such a great personal loss cannot be repaired, will take steps to mitigate its consequences." Spohr had been staying at her family's vacation home when the accident occurred, local media reported. She returned to Germany shortly after the accident. Germany does not plan to procure more F-35 fighter jets beyond the 35 already ordered, the defense ministry has said, rejecting a report that claimed Berlin aimed to expand its fleet to 50. Germany has so far ordered 35 US-made jets to replace a total of 85 ageing Tornado aircraft. "The defense ministry currently has no plans to procure additional F-35s beyond the 35 F-35s already contractually agreed," a ministry spokesperson said at a regular news conference. A military source told the Reuters news agency that the 15 additional jets had been part of earlier considerations. However, NATO's new targets for weapons and troop numbers mean that the number may need adjusting. The source did not confirm if more jets will ultimately be ordered. The report by comes amid tensions between Germany and France over their joint FCAS fighter jet project. An industry source told Reuters that France now wants an 80% workshare, which could scrap the agreed split and block the project's next phase. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will make his first official visit to London on Thursday, with a German-British treaty of friendship expected to be signed. Government spokesman Steffen Meyer said in Berlin on Friday that the visit aims to deepen close ties between the two countries. Merz will be received by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has sought to repair relations with the EU after Brexit. The draft treaty is set to be approved by the German Cabinet on Wednesday. It will focus on cooperation in foreign and defense policy, economic growth, and more direct contact between citizens. Once signed, the agreement will go to the Bundestag for approval. An action plan with specific joint projects will also be presented to strengthen bilateral ties. Independent justices preside over Germany's Federal Constitutional Court. How are they chosen? DW looks at the process of picking judges in Germany. A joint car plant in the Chinese city of Nanjing, run by German car company Volkswagen and its local partner SAIC, will be closed in the coming months. "Volkswagen Group and its joint venture partners are accelerating the transformation towards electric, intelligent, connected vehicles," a spokesperson for Volkswagen told AFP news agency. "Many SAIC Volkswagen sites are currently being converted or have already been converted for electric vehicle production," the spokesperson said. The spokesman also confirmed the news first reported by German newspaper, , about production having already come to a halt there. One reason for the closure of the plant, which is set to be closed over the second half of the year, was because of its urban location, making the expansion of electric vehicle production difficult. The plant, which has a capacity to produce 360,000 vehicles per year, first opened in 2008. It made models like Volkswagen Passat and Skoda Superb. The number of companies that went bankrupt in Germany significantly rose again in April, according to finalized data from the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). The number of 2,125 companies going bust in April 2025 marks a rise of 11.5% more than in the same month last year. Volker Treier, the head analyst of the German Industry and Commerce Chamber, warned that "Whoever wants to ensure competitiveness, cannot further postpone relief." According to preliminary data from Destatis, the number of businesses filing for bankruptcy in June 2025 is expected to rise by 2.4% in comparison to June 2024. A Bundestag debate marking the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide on Friday ended with recriminations and outrage when members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party suggested that what happened in Bosnia in 1995 was not in fact genocide. AfD politician Alexander Wolf caused uproar by questioning whether the events in Srebrenica were worthy of the label of "genocide," arguing that Bosnian Serbs had only shot men, and had spared women and children. The statement does not square with the fact that, beyond the killings of about 8,000 men and boys during the massacre, there have been thousands of reported cases of sexual abuse against Bosniak women and girls. Verdicts by both the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have already determined the genocidal character of the massacre. Politicians from the coalition SPD and CDU/CSU accused Wolf of spouting revisionist history that denies genocide and sides the perpetrators of war crimes. Still, the AfD was not done, with Martin Sichert calling Srebrenica a glaring example of the threat posed by multiculturalism, claiming that Germany was running headlong into a similar fate. It was then that parliamentarians demonstratively turned their backs, with Klöckner reprimanding Sichert and Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul unexpectedly taking to the speaker's pulpit to apologize to Bosnia-Herzegovina's Ambassador to Germany Damir Arnaut for having to listen to Sichert's words. On Friday, the German parliament held a special session in memory of the Srebrenica massacre, which took place 30 years ago. About 8,000 Muslims were murdered by Bosnian Serbs in an act, recognized by several international courts as a genocide, that started on July 11, 1995. Julia Klöckner, president of the Bundestag, said that "Srebrenica was the worst war crime on European soil since World War II." She said that the massacre was the result of UN peacekeeping forces doing nothing to protect those seeking refuge. "With brutal violence, the attackers separated families and deported women, children and the elderly," she stated. "They kept men and boys behind in order to systematically murder them in the days that followed." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video A German backpacker who went missing in western Australia almost two weeks ago has been found alive, Australian media reported on Friday. Australian police must first confirm the 26-year-old Carolina Wilga's identity, Australia's reported. A passerby ran into Wilga on a path in the bush, Australian media reported. Her reappearance follows a large-scale search that dragged on for days. Read more on when Wilga went missing and how she was found here.
Express Tribune
3 days ago
- Politics
- Express Tribune
Bosnians honour Srebrenica genocide victims 30 years on
A Bosnian Muslim survivor of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide walks among headstones as she visits the graves of her relatives at the memorial cemetery in Potocari, near the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, July 11, 2024. Photo AFP Thousands of Bosnians marked the 30th anniversary of a massacre in which more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys were executed by Bosnian Serb forces during a 1992-1995 war at a cemetery near Srebrenica on Friday. Families buried the partial remains of seven victims, one of them a woman, alongside 6,750 already interred. Local and foreign dignitaries laid flowers at the memorial where the names of the victims are engraved in stone. About 1,000 victims have yet to be found from Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two, which, decades later, still haunts Bosnia and Herzegovina's 3 million people. Families who retrieved victims' remains have increasingly opted to bury even just a few bones to give them a final resting place. "I feel such sadness and pain for all these people and youth," said a woman called Sabaheta from the eastern town of Gorazde. Survivors and families, standing or sitting by the rows of white gravestones, joined a collective Islamic prayer for the dead before the burial. Then, in a highly emotional procession, the men carried coffins draped in green cloth and Bosnian flags to the graves. The massacre unfolded after Srebrenica — a designated UN "safe area" for civilians in Bosnia's war that followed the disintegration of federal Yugoslavia — was overrun by nationalist Bosnian Serb forces. While the women opted to go to the UN compound, men tried to escape through nearby woods where most of them were caught. Some were shot immediately, and others were driven to schools or warehouses where they were killed in the following days. The bodies were dumped in pits then dug up months later and scattered in smaller graves in an effort to conceal the crime.
Straits Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Straits Times
Bosnians honour Srebrenica genocide victims 30 years on
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Bosnian Muslims gather amid grave stones of victims killed during the Srebrenica genocide, at the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial in Potocari, Bosnia and Herzegovina, July 11, 2025. REUTERS/Amel Emric TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY SREBRENICA, Bosnia - Thousands of Bosnians gathered at a cemetery near Srebrenica on Friday to mark the 30th anniversary of a massacre in which more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys were executed by Bosnian Serb forces during a 1992-5 war. About 1,000 victims have yet to be found from Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two, which still haunts Bosnia and Herzegovina's 3 million people decades later. Families who retrieved victims' remains have increasingly opted to bury even just a few bones to give them a final resting place. At a ceremony on Friday, the partial remains of seven victims were to be buried alongside 6,750 already interred. Survivors, families and dignitaries walked along rows of white gravestones. Some prayed and cried at the gravesides or sat motionless, heads buried in their hands. "I feel such sadness and pain for all these people and youth," said a woman called Sabaheta from the eastern town of Gorazde. The massacre unfolded after Srebrenica - a designated U.N. "safe area" for civilians in Bosnia's war that followed the disintegration of federal Yugoslavia - was overrun by nationalist Bosnian Serb forces. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Nuclear safety research gets boost with new institute, $66m funding as S'pore weighs energy viability Singapore Man who killed 5-year-old daughter gets life sentence after he appeals against 35-year jail term Singapore More than 14,300 people checked during 7-week-long anti-crime ops Singapore Over 150 e-bikes and other non-compliant mobility devices impounded in last 2 months: LTA Singapore S'porean who defaulted on NS obligations used fake Malaysian passports at checkpoints over 800 times Singapore Over 12,000 lower-income households to receive $60 in transport vouchers by end-July Business CEO salaries: At Singapore's top companies, whose pay went up and whose saw a drop? Singapore NDP 2025: Leopard tank transmission fault identified, vehicle to resume role in mobile column While the women opted to go to the U.N. compound, men tried to escape through nearby woods where most of them were caught. Some were shot immediately, and others were driven to schools or warehouses where they were killed in the following days. The bodies were dumped in pits then dug up months later and scattered in smaller graves in an effort to conceal the crime. General Ratko Mladic, who commanded the forces, was convicted of genocide by a U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague along with Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic. As part of the commemoration, nearly 7,000 people took part in a three-day peace march in reverse of the 100 km route that some Muslim Bosniak men managed to take from Srebrenica to escape the Bosnian Serb death squads. Two international courts have ruled the massacre was genocide but Serb leaders in Bosnia and Serbia dispute the term, the death toll and the official account of what went on – reflecting conflicting narratives of the Yugoslav wars that still feed political divisions and stifle progress toward integration with Western Europe and the EU. Last year, the U.N. General Assembly declared July 11 an international day of remembrance of the Srebrenica genocide, with many countries organising commemorations this year. "This can never be forgotten. Who can say this wasn't a genocide? Only a person without a soul," Sabaheta said. REUTERS
The Herald Scotland
4 days ago
- General
- The Herald Scotland
Remember Srebrenica. Why genocide is being marked at a tree
Ðuherić was born in Scotland to a Muslim Bosniak father who had fled ethnic cleansing in his hometown of Doboj, one of the sites of Serb atrocities during the war in Bosnia, narrowly escaping being shot along with a busload of companions, by soldiers who stopped them at the side of a road. The white ribbon is symbolic, a chilling reminder of the white armbands that from 31 May 1992, any non-Serbs, chiefly Muslims and Croats, in the Prijedor municipality were ordered to wear, one of the early acts that set up for the horror that was to come. But the conifer, in a corner of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, also has a new and potent symbolism, for this is the Picea Omorika, once common in Bosnia, endemic in the Drina valley, an area targeted by Serbs for ethnic cleansing. According to documents of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, some 3,000 Bosniaks were killed during at Višegrad. Across wider Bosnia, tens of thousands were murdered. This Friday, to commemorate the atrocities at Srebrenica, where thirty years ago over 8,000 Muslims, mostly men and boys, were shot, a small group of people will gather at this small stand of conifers, to remember. The charity Beyond Srebrenica came up with the idea because, says chief executive Barry Fisher, 'there isn't a place for the Bosnian community in Scotland to commemorate, on a national level, and the idea of a tree seemed an excellent parallel of renewal and telling a new story.' Initially Beyond Srebrenica had thought of planting a new sapling but, when the charity contacted the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, they found its International Conifer Conservation Programme had already been growing the key, threatened Bosnian spruce for many years. Threatened with extinction and listed as endangered on the IECN red list, the conical and graceful picea omorika was once a widespread species, but is now restricted to a small and contracting area within Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. The current limited distribution of this species, says Dr Hannah Wilson, head of the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh International Conifer Conservation Programme, reflects a 'post-glacial contraction' in a 'cold-adapted species' that thrives in areas that are still cold. But in addition to have a limited range, the species is in decline and there are other distinct reasons for that decline. Dr Wilson says: 'There are have been lot of wildfires and deliberate burning. This has been a major threat. The 2021 fires in the Balkans resulted in the loss of 30-80% of the trees in some different populations. There was also, she notes, 'conflict-related' destruction. 'In the 1992-1993 part of the conflict a lot of the forest was intentionally burnt and that resulted in fewer than 100 mature individuals surviving in some populations.' Partly it was burnt to use as fuel, as Ðuherić explains: 'There was no electricity. The winters in Bosnia are pretty horrific, and the winter in 1993, especially, was really, really bad, and without electricity, without heating – never mind war - people die. They were just dying from cold. So many trees were chopped up to be used.' 'Even till recently you could see lots of the cities, especially Sarajevo, which was under siege, there is a weird lack of trees or greenery. That has improved a lot in the last 10-15 years. The first time I went to Bosnia was in 2002 and when you look at photos from that time, there's hardly any trees in the cities because they've been chopped down. People needed them.' Ðuherić, a lawyer, was born after the war was over in Scotland, in 1997, to a Bosniak father and Scottish mother. While her father wants, she says, not to think about the atrocities, she believes it is important for her generation, and all of us, to remember. Her father had been finishing his studies in Sarajevo when the war started, and took part in a massive student demonstration in which Radovan Karadzic, who would later be convicted of genocide and was then president of a Serb nationalist political party, had his guards shoot into the crowd. Six people were killed. It was the catalyst that started the war. 'My dad remembers running to get away because they were shooting. And so he called his dad and was like, shall I leave? Shall I stay? And his dad said, 'Well, I can't tell you. You need to make that decision.' Her father returned to Doboj, his home town, while her uncle continued to travel back and forth to Sarajevo until the city was shut off. 'In Doboj, the Serb army basically walked in unimpeded. There was no real resistance, and there was a curfew, so all non-Serbs were only allowed out between seven o'clock and 11 o'clock in the morning. People were being taken off the streets and beaten up and thrown in prison. Serbs were taking people's cars. They were coming into people's houses and saying, basically, 'What have you got, and when are you going to leave?'' The Serbs, who had military positions in the mountains around the town, bombed its mosque. Duheric says, 'When they started bombing the mosque my grandfather said, 'Now I see what this is about. Now I understand.'' It was then that her father got a seat on a convoy of buses. But the bus, she explains, which was heading to Novi Sad, was stopped en route. Soldiers got on and ordered all the Muslims to get off and to line up to shoot them. 'Luckily," she says, "there was this guy who was a Serb, and he started shouting at these, these soldiers, 'Don't you dare do that. I'm a proper Chetnik [Serbian nationalist], your family aren't proper Chetniks. I was tasked to take these children.' He was taking the children of some Muslim neighbors out to safety. He made a massive scene and they eventually let everyone back.' Ðuherić's grandparents were then still in Doboj, and during this period her grandmother found a lump in her breast. Treatment was impossible as she wasn't allowed, as a Muslim, to travel, or even permitted out of the house after 11 O'clock each day, anyway.' Though her grandparents did eventually escape to Croatia and then Slovenia, and ultimately, on a bus to the United Kingdom, arriving in February 1993, her grandmother was dead, of cancer, by October. A Bosnian woman mourns the victims of the Srebrenica genocide (Image: PA) Throughout Ðuherić's childhood, Bosnia was where they went for holidays. 'For me, it was magical. If someone said holiday, that's the same as saying Bosnia and this was the first time most of my dad's aunts and uncles and cousins had ever met us because they couldn't travel to the UK.' But, she remembers too, seeing the scars everywhere. 'There were bullet holes in every building. Some of my dad's aunts and uncles houses were half destroyed, and they were being they were in the process of being rebuilt.' It was only later she had the 'weird realisation' of quite awful it was. 'I mean, obviously war is awful, but as a child, you have no sense of what really that means.' 'When people left, many Serbs went in and lived in their houses. The first couple of years that we went back to Bosnia, there were people living in my family's houses. There was my dad's oldest uncle, his wife and adult daughter and her son all living on the top floor, and there was a Serbian family living on the bottom. People were obviously supposed to leave, but they didn't, and then to go to the courts takes a very long time.' READ MORE Beyond Srebrenica takes delegations and even school groups out to Bosnia. 'When we do,' says Fisher 'one of the first things we do is go for a walking tour around Sarajevo. And without exception everyone says, 'This is an incredible place. What an amazing European capital'. And that's the point, yeah, because it was an incredibly successful, even during the Tito years. 'On one street, in Sarajevo,' he observes, 'there is a synagogue, a mosque, a catholic church. So you can just see, yeah, without having to explain it, that, you know, the community was so mixed.' Ðuherić notes, 'There hasn't been much healing in Bosnia, I think it's fair to say, and a lot of that is politics and the country the people haven't sort of been allowed to move on because of the way the political system is structured, and that has meant that so many people are are living with their trauma every day.' 'At this point in time, lots of people who were convicted of war crimes have now served their sentence and they're back out there living in their own houses down the road from people that they were murdering and raping 30 years ago. There are also still separate school systems in Bosnia with Serb children learning one history and Muslim children learning another. Barry Fisher (left) and Hana Duheric (right) from Beyond Srebrenica (Image: GordonTerris/Herald&Times) 'How can there ever be any kind of reconciliation? How can the country ever come back together unless people are able to come together and talk to each other? Because there's very little that is actually different about these three groups of people. It's the same culture, it's the same language, it's the same history.' 'In many ways,' she says, 'the Serbs did win. The country is split into two entities. Many of these towns that were more mixed before the war are now 90-95% Serb. Srebrenica is like that. The town my dad is from is like that.' Even now, it's still believed that not all the bodies have been found. 'Every year they have a funeral for the bodies that have been found in the last year. They buried them then the Serbs unburied them. There are secondary grave sites, tertiary grave site, most of the tombs, it's not the whole person. It's a leg bone. It's bits.' But also, as Barry Fisher points out, denial is still rife in spite of the recognition of the genocide at Srebrenica by both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Even in Srebrenica, where the Memorial Center tells the story of the genocide, and where each year newly found remains are buried, there are those who still deny what happened. 'People will say there's nothing in the graves,' he observes. 'The last mayor of Srebrenica denied it had happened. Even though international delegations come and visit and get the story told to them by survivors, and the incredible mothers of Srebrenica, we've done so much to keep the story in people's consciousness. Graves at Srebrenica (Image: James McEnaney) It is therefore important, says Ðuherić, for the rest of the world to act as witness in the face of denial, to show that what happened in Bosnia has been seen. 'The world is very connected and there is so much untruth, so many stories out there that are untrue. If people are taught this is what happened and what the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia found, these are the facts, when people go online and there are lots of really right wing nationalists denying, they can challenge that.' 'This is about solidarity with ordinary people in Bosnia. They're not alone in this. There are other people who know what happened and they can tell people what happened and eventually there will at some point be no more of this denial of fact.' Never again, is a phrase often uttered. But what is clear is that the lessons of the Holocaust and of Srebrenica have not been learned. People are still othered. Atrocities are still committed. A conflict in Ukraine, and, attacks on Gaza, described by some, including Amnesty International, as a genocide, are reminders of the ever-present threat of that 'again'. Such conflict can also be a deeply upsetting reminder to Bosnians of what happened in their home country. 'What is happening in Ukraine and in Gaza is horrifying on any level,' says Ðuherić. 'But I remember especially when the war in Ukraine started there were lots of people, friends and family, who found what was happening very triggering. It's pretty close to home. It's in Europe again. Are we letting people down again, are we repeating history. We say never again but it keeps happening.' Beyond Srebrenica has many forms of outreach. The tree is their latest addition. Picea omorika has been in cultivation in the UK since 1881, but RBGE collections made during recent expeditions have greatly increased the strength of our ex situ conservation collections, resulting in over 1000 trees being grown across their network of safe sites for the conservation of threatened conifers by 80 partner gardens and institutions. 'We feel,' says Fisher, 'that the trees are a lasting place where the Bosnian community can come and pay quiet respect at a time of the year that suits them, not necessarily every year, or on the 11 July.' 'The word survivor is used a lot in our conversation. These trees are survivors. They started their life in Bosnia and are now thriving in Edinburgh. So there's a really potent parallel. I think it's about promoting a sense of looking forward, renewal. Rooted in the fact that they are survivors too.'
