Carna Pistan (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow) was interviewed by Leonardo Torelli for his article “Punishing Denial: Thoughts on the Amendment to the Bosnian Criminal Code’ (Balkan Diskurs, July 8, 2022).

This law is unique. As Pistan points out, it is part of a new category of internationally enforced punitive memory laws. This is why it was appropriate to try to understand its purposes. As discussed, the focus is not so much on the protection of the Bosnian “constituent pact” or on promoting reconciliation as it is on the need to protect the dignity of the survivors and the memory of the victims. In this way, it seeks to stem the current of denial which pervades the political discourse and remove a formidable obstacle to mutual understanding.

Photo by Michael Bueker via Wikimedia Commons. The wall of names at the Potočari genocide memorial near Srebrenica.