Brussels, 11 July 2021
FEMYSO commemorates the gruesome Srebrenica genocide on Muslim men on boys in 1995 and honours all the victims. We at the FEMYSO family send our heartfelt condolences to all families and friends of the victims, and remain committed to our fight against the root causes of this massacre.
It is exactly twenty-six years ago on this day that the worst human massacre took place on European soil after World War II. It was a crime solely driven by a hatred for Bosnian Muslims and enabled by a blatant institutional failure of UN Peacekeeping forces. Human beings were singled out for their faith, whose name sounded ‘Muslim’ while not being religious, to suffer great inhumanity and in the end, to be brutally murdered. Men and boys were separated from their families, women and girls were subjected to rape and torture.
The brutal murder of more than 8000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica however does not seem to have left a necessary mark to #NeverAgain. As we see the spike of mainstreamed and normalised Islamophobia amongst public and political speeches, rapidly disseminated by traditional and social media, and finally implemented by legislations, we must remain ever committed to fight this injustice while protecting all racialised minorities.
This is why at FEMYSO, we call for:
- Mandatory education of the Srebrenica genocide in history classes
- National and EU wide commemoration events by national and EU authorities
- Mandatory education about anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia
We will continue our fight against any form of racism and our work for a more diverse, cohesive and vibrant Europe.
#WeRemember
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Notes
- FEMYSO (est. 1996) is a network organisation for 33 Muslim youth and student organisations across 20 European countries, and is the leading voice for European Muslim youth, developing and empowering them, and working to build a more diverse, cohesive and vibrant Europe.