Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 06/12/2021
While being a guest at the RTRS morning program, Dusanka Majkic, a delegate in the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, spoke about the request to allow the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina to wear the hijab and beard. In the article about her guest appearance, RTRS fabricated a part of her statement and inserted the expression “civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina” into the quote, which Majkic did not say.
Delegate in the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina (PSBiH), Dusanka Majkic, was a guest on December 2, 2021, in the morning program of the public broadcaster of the Radio-Television of Republika Srpska (RTRS). During her visit, Majkic, among other things, spoke about Bakir Izetbegovic’s request that members of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (AFBiH) be allowed to wear hijabs and beards.
An article about this show was published on the RTRS website, in which the alleged statement of Dusanka Majkic on this topic is mentioned. The article states the following:
She pointed out that it is hard to imagine that we could see members with beards and hijabs in the barracks in the future.
– Chaos is being introduced in the Armed Forces of BiH, and the other two nations would hardly accept this way of functioning. Instead of decently shaved soldiers, we would have those who remind us of the civil war in BiH or those who took part in the terrorist attack on the United States in 2001, Majkic pointed out.
The alleged statement, in identical form, was shared by about twenty other media from Bosnia and Herzegovina, including Oslobodjenje, Hayat, Raport, Slobodna Bosna, Face and others.
However, an insight into the show’s recording, attached to the RTRS article, concludes that Majkic’s statement had different content. At 1:58 of the video, published on the YouTube channel called RTRS vijesti, you can hear Dusanka Majkic’s statement, as the following:
Chaos would be introduced in the Armed Forces, the other two nations would hardly accept this way of functioning of the Armed Forces, and it is difficult to imagine that in the future they would meet members with beards and hijabs in the barracks of the Armed Forces.
Instead of decently dressed, shaved, trimmed soldiers, this time, we would have soldiers with beards that many of us associate with September 11 and many things that happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina that have not been fully investigated or sanctioned.
Therefore, Majkic did not use the formulations attributed to her in her statement. RTRS, while transcribing its show, fabricated the guest’s statement.
It is interesting that RTRS “added” the wording “civil war” to Dusanka Majkic’s statement. In the analysis published on November 23, 2021, Raskrinkavanje wrote about an incorrect claim related to defining the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina when RTRS journalist erroneously stated that the conflict was “defined, among other things, by the Dayton Peace Agreement as a civil war”.
The claim that the Dayton Peace Agreement, the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, defines the past war as a “civil war” is incorrect. The Agreement states that the war is a “tragic conflict in the region”, and the term “civil war” is not mentioned in any part of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Dusanka Majkic was among the delegates who voted for the adoption of the draft conclusion requesting the annulment of the amendments to the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which prohibit and punish the denial of genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this conclusion, the term “civil war” is used, but Majkic did not say it during her guest appearance on the morning program of RTRS.
Some media, such as the website Dnevni Avaz, published an authentic statement by Dusanka Majkic in their article, without “the added” parts.
Therefore, according to the facts, we rate RTRS’ article, which contains the fabricated statement of Dusanka Majkic, as fake news. All the other transmissions of this statement are rated as a distribution of fake news.
Note:
December 7, 2021: After the publication of this analysis, websites Face, Slobodna Bosna, Krstarica and Hayat corrected inaccurate statements in their articles and received a corrected rating.
December 8, 2021: After the publication of this analysis, websites Raport and Source corrected inaccurate statements in their articles and received a corrected grade.
December 9, 2021: After the publication of this analysis, the website Bolja Bosna corrected inaccurate statements in its article and received a corrected grade.