SARAJEVO: Muslims, Serbs and Croats united in anger Thursday over Bosnia s first-ever gay festival.
Bosnia-Herzegovina s Muslim majority is particularly upset about the four-day Queer Sarajevo Festival because it will open on September 24 – when the holy month of Ramadan is well underway.
We respect freedom and tolerance, but the festival is a kind of provocation since it is taking place during Ramadan, Amir Zukic of the Party of Democratic Action, Bosnia s main Muslim party, told the Dnevni Avaz newspaper.
Bosnia is a conservative society, and I doubt that such an event would be accepted.
His words were echoed by Serbs and Croats, who are Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics respectively, in a rare show of inter-ethnic unity in the former Yugoslav republic torn apart by war in 1992-95.
It is unnatural, sick and deviant behavior, said Rajko Vasic of the Social Democrats, who hold power in Bosnia s Serb entity of Republika Srpska.
Ivo Tomasevic, a Croat leader, said the Queer Festival was being organized by a small group of people promoting ideas which do not represent basic values.
Organisers rejected the accusations.
We ve been preparing the project for the past year and I would not spend my time only to provoke someone, said Svetlana Djurkovic, head of the gay and lesbian rights group Association Q.
There are also many believers among us, she said. It is a festival of culture and art.
On its website (www.queer.ba), the organizers say: Bosnia and Herzegovina is a traditional and patriarchic society in which different sexualities and/or identities are not accepted.
Queer Sarajevo Festival will offer a space in which we will evoke and reexamine heteronormativity and patriarchic values. – AFP
