Press Release
The Women’s Section in the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir Launch a Campaign on the 25th Anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide:
“25 Years On: Lessons from Srebrenica”

On the 11th July 1995, Serb forces invaded the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica in Bosnia in which tens of thousands of Muslims had taken refuge from the Serbian army’s offensive in north-eastern Bosnia. The town had been designated as a “safe area” by the United Nations (UN) and declared as being under UN protection. In the days following the capture of Srebrenica, 8000 Muslim men and boys were executed in cold blood by the Serbs. It was described as the worst atrocity on European soil since World War 2. Alongside the massacre, 25,000 to 30,000 Muslim women, children and elderly were expelled from the town as part of the Serb’s brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing of Muslims from lands bordering the Republic of Serbia. The Muslims of Srebrenica were promised protection by the UN but that protection never came. They were promised that western governments would halt the Serb onslaught through NATO but that help never materialised. Indeed, not only did the UN fail to prevent the capture of Srebrenica and the subsequent massacre, it demilitarized the Bosnian Muslim fighters in the town, weakening their hand against their enemy. In the village of Potocari, another UN peacekeeping base, tens of thousands of Muslims from Srebrenica who had sought protection from the advancing Serbian troops, were subjected to a campaign of terror at the hands of Serb forces who entered the area.

They killed hundreds of Muslims, slit the throats of children and babies and raped countless Muslim women and girls. Many of these crimes were witnessed by UN troops who failed to stop them.

Twenty-five years on from the brutal Srebrenica massacre, victims of the tragedy still wait for justice against the thousands of Serb soldiers who perpetrated the most grievous crimes against them and their families. There is lost hope that they will ever win their fight for justice. The Srebrenica genocide was only one of the litany of atrocities committed by Serb forces against the Bosnian Muslims in the Bosnian war while the governments of the world – Muslim and non-Muslim - watched on. The 3 year Bosnian war, from 1992 to 1995, saw the ethnic cleansing of Muslims from hundreds of towns and villages as Serb parties in Bosnia and the Republic of Serbia government of Slobodan Milosevic sought to create their nationalistic vision of a Greater Serbia, with an ethnically pure Serbian territory along the Drina River.

Their forces systematically destroyed homes, and detained, tortured and slaughtered tens of thousands of Muslims in cold blood, including women, children and the elderly. 100,000 were killed during the war, 2.2 million were displaced and 50,000 Muslim women and girls were raped by Serb forces, with many conceiving children from this heinous crime. Thousands of Bosnian Muslims were also detained in Serb concentration camps where they were starved, tortured and killed.

In the years following the Srebrenica massacre, the world promised, “Never Again, and that lessons would be learnt from this dark stain in modern history. However, today we see the slaughter and crimes of the Bosnian war and the Srebrenica genocide repeated against Muslims in lands across the world....in some instances at a scale which surpasses Srebrenica. We also witness the UN’s continued impotence and complicity, as well as that of Western and Muslim governments, in the countless atrocities executed against Muslims today – including in Syria, Myanmar, Kashmir, Palestine, Yemen, East Turkestan and India.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, the Women Section in the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir have launched a campaign entitled, “25 Years On: Lessons from Srebrenica” to highlight the true lessons that should be learnt from this human tragedy and how the legacy of genocides which afflict our Ummah can be broken so that history does not continue to repeat itself. It will address how the remembrance of the brutal events of the past should help us to reshape our future to achieve security and justice as Muslims, including in our lands. Indeed, the Prophet (saw) said:

«لاَ يُلْدَغُ الْمُؤْمِنُ مِنْ جُحْرٍ وَاحِدٍ مَرَّتَيْنِ»

“The believer does not allow himself to be stung twice from the same hole.”

The campaign can be followed at:

http://www.hizbuttahrir.today/en/index.php/hizbuttahrir/19753.html
https://www.facebook.com/WomenSharia/

Dr. Nazreen Nawaz
Director of the Women’s Section in The Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir

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