BOSNIA NEWS

SARAJEVO, Bosnia - Bosnians celebrated today 600 years of Islam in their nation with a concert of spiritual music, a prayer for peace, and a gentle reminder to the rest of the Europe: not all of the continent's Muslims are of immigrant origin.

"Recently we have noticed that the EU is obsessed by the immigrant Muslims from the East," said Mustafa Ceric, leader Of the Bosnian Islamic Community Reisu-l-ulema Mustafa ef. Ceric , the official institution of Bosnia's Muslims.

"This is an opportunity to remind that there are indigenous Muslims in Europe.By celebrating 600 years of Islam here we want to naturalize Islam in Europe," Ceric said, adding that Bosnia's Muslims have illustrated how Islam can be harmonized with a European way of life.

"Sarajevo is a good place to send a message of peace, since the last century started and ended with a with a war in Sarajevo," Ceric said.

The 1914 assassination in Sarajevo of the crown prince of the Austro-Hungarian empire triggered World War I,and during the 1992-1995 Serbian aggression against Bosnia the genocide was carried out on Bosnian Muslims.

Islam arrived in Bosnia when Bosnia became a part of the Ottoman Empire in 1463 and found the local population split between the Bosnian Bogomil Church,Roman Catholicism, and Christian Orthodoxy.

Islam spread over the next 400 years in Bosnia. It is the faith of almost half of Bosnia's population today.The Bosnian Islamic Community is now seeking to impose itself as a model for several million Muslims in other European countries who have no organized authority to guide them.

"We live in a global world so we Muslims should be aware that global security is our interest," Ceric said.

Reisu-l-ulema Mustafa ef. Ceric said that while he understood complaints by Muslims about being rejected in many European countries, Muslims also need to make efforts to fit in.

«I think the Muslims are highlighting their presence in Europe in the wrong way.That's why the Bosnia Islamic Community has been campaigning for the establishment of a Europe-wide organization for Muslims that would control what is being taught in Islamic schools and mosques.I think we Muslims have no choice but to work for our presence in Europe and to show that we are ready to accept the values of human rights, democracy, transparency, accountability, the rule of law and all those values that are also Islamic values," Reisu-l-ulema Mustafa ef. Ceric said.

SARAJEVO,Bosnia - The Bosnian Justice Minister Bariša Čolak has demanded an urgent meeting with Serbian counterpart Dušan Petrović.

According to a statement issued by the Bosnian Justice Ministry, a letter dispatched to Petrović is another invitation to Serbian authorities to agree on discussing cooperation between justice ministries, particularly with respect to the extradition of Ilija Jurišić to Bosnia.

Ilija Jurisic is a Bosnian patriot who participated in defending the Bosnian city of Tuzla from the Serbian aggressor during the 1992-1995 Serbian aggression against Bosnia.He has been arrested by the Serbian aggressor and has been in a prison in Belgrade since 11 May 2007.

Jurišić was detained on May 1 this year in Belgrade on suspicion that he committed a war crime in Tuzla by taking part in a conflict between the Bosnian Army and Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) troops in May 1992.

Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) was totally controlled by Serbia and the role of the JNA in the early stages of the war was very important.The Serbian aggressor, with the active participation of JNA forces, seized about 70 per cent of Bosnia in the first few weeks of the 1992-1995 Serbian aggression against Bosnia.

In May 1992,the JNA troops came under attack by the Bosnian Army as they were withdrawing from the Bosnian city of Tuzla and up to 200 JNA soldiers were reportedly killed and 140 JNA soldiers were taken prisoners by the Bosnian Army.

”Ilija Jurišić is the citizen of Bosnia, and the crime he reportedly committed took place in Bosnia. Bosnia’s War Crime Prosecution is conducting the investigation into the case which had been transferred to Bosnia from the Hague Tribunal,” the statement by the Bosnian Justice Minister read.

The initiative of the Bosnian Ministry has been prompted by Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukčević recent statement that there were no valid arguments for Jurišić’s extradition.

PRIJEDOR,Bosnia - Thousands attended a funeral today for 147 genocide victims from the northwest Bosnian city of Prijedor who were murdered in 1992 by the genocidal Serbian aggressor.

Some of the genocide victims had died of torture in a concentration camps during the Serbian aggression against Bosnia.The bodies of the genocide victims were found over the past few years in 31 different mass graves in the area and identified through DNA analysis before being returned to the families.

"Most of them were murdered in the Omarska concentration camp," Jasmin Odobasic, a Bosnian forensic expert who led the exhumation team said.

Television pictures of emaciated inmates at one of them, the Omarska concentration camp, shocked the world in 1992.

"It's horrible to have a funeral for so many people.What happened here will never be forgotten," said the genocide survivor Harisa Trto,50.

The concentration camp Omarska, near Prijedor, was set up by the Serbian aggressor at the beginning of the 1992-1995 Serbian aggression against Bosnia.Thousands of Bosnians were tortured and murdered by the Serbian fascists in the camp.

After a religious ceremony in Prijedor, the bodies of the genocide victims were taken for reburial in 12 local cemeteries to be buried according to wishes of their families.

One of the 147 genocide victims was a Catholic Croatian, while the rest were Muslim Bosnians.