Pismo Peticija e-1837 - draft

Draft
We would like to take this opportunity to express our respect to you personally, as well as to the other institutions of Canada. What was happening in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 is not a consequence of a civil war but the attempts by its neighboring states to violate the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina and recently pronounced verdicts of the Hague Tribunal on Bosnian Genocide and the Joint Criminal Activity confirmed this. After pronouncing the above judgments, the most important issue for the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina is posed: Will Canada put its seal on the truth and justice in accordance with international law?
Respected Excellency,
We can not bring back those who were killed, nor can we eradicate all the suffering caused by genocide, brutal ethnic cleansing, siege of the civilian population and concentration camps, that was happening in the heart of Europe and in the time of global peace. However, what we can and should do is to enable the criminal sanctioning of the Bosnian Genocide offenders. In this regard, on behalf of the international expert team of the Institute for the Research of Genocide Canada, to which many prominent Canadians belong, Dr. Emir Ramic, the director of the IGC initiated the e-1837 petition which was signed on the website of the Canadian Parliament. The main goal of the petition is to deny the denial of the Bosnian Genocide in Canada because it is a criminal offense established by the final judgments of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
The legal basis for the criminal sanctioning of the Bosnian Genocide deniers in Canada is the final verdict of international courts in The Hague, the final resolutions of more than 30 state parliaments in the world, and in particular the two resolutions on genocide in Srebrenica adopted by the Canadian Parliament. The moral basis for such a law is the permanent exhibit of the genocide in Srebrenica at the Canadian Human Rights Museum, the revelation of the first memorial in the Diaspora to the victims of the genocide in Srebrenica in Windsor, the distribution of the Srebrenica Flower to all members of the Canadian Parliament and the study of genocide in Srebrenica at the  Canadian schools. Any denial of the Bosnian Genocide must be punished, since negation is the first step towards the new genocide. To deny such genocide in the name of some equality among the victims, insults the memory of those who died and the suffering of those who remained behind them.
By its resolution 96 (I) on December 11, 1946, the UN General Assembly, under international law, declared genocide a crime convicted of a civilized world and that genocide is contrary to the spirit and goals of the UN. The notion of genocide is defined in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime, adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1948. In the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), genocide is defined as an act committed with the intention of destroying one or more national , ethnic, racial or religious group. The important link after every committed genocide is its denial, so Gregory H. Stanton, the president of the Genocide Watch, has put negation into one of the eight stages of the development of every genocide. Ignoring the genocide in the broadest sense of the word, by the definition of Guenter Lewy, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, marks an endeavor to challenge the existence of genocide or to interpret an event in a way that takes away this character. This implies a situation where there is a universal consensus on what genocide represents and where the denial of genocide is considered an unacceptable historical revisionism. The most common motives behind the denial of the Bosnian Genocide are ideology and politics, that is, the efforts of individuals, organizations, and in some cases the state of Serbia are to free themselves from responsibility and consequently, moral and political consequences of their own participation in genocide.
By accepting the petition e-1837, Canada would make a major contribution to raising awareness against the negation of genocide and thus will make the first step towards the prevention of a future genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The criminal sanctioning of the Bosnian Genocide is not only an obligation for judicial decisions of international and national courts, but also a condition for the construction of an open and just society in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Any denial of the Bosnian Genocide constitutes an unacceptable and impermissible threat to the peace, liberty and security of peoples and citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Any rehabilitation of ideas and ideologies justifying genocide and its perpetrators constitute new crimes that must be punishable.
With the assurance that we are on the same path of protection of human rights, the dignity of every human being and the promotion of universal rights of the citizens of Canada, please receive our deepest respect.
Institute for the Research of Genocide Canada