Google Maps has removed a fake location named "Ratko Mladic Park" in the memorial cemetery park in Potocari, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the remains of thousands of murdered Bosnian Muslims are buried, BGNES reported.
Employees of the Srebrenica Memorial Center discovered and reported the mockery of the victims of the 1995 genocide by Serbian forces under the command of war criminal Mladic.
Almaša Salihović, a spokesperson for the center, said that the false location was indicated right in the middle of the cemetery. She described the act as "another in a series of insults" to the victims and survivors of the Bosniak genocide, a new attempt to deny the facts and cynically ridicule them.
Mladic was found guilty of genocide and other war crimes by the Hague Tribunal and sentenced to life in prison.
Bosnian law prohibits genocide denial and glorification of war criminals. The person who placed the non-existent dot on the map "Ratko Mladic" bears criminal responsibility, lawyer Edwin Agich told "Balkan Insight".
Agić pointed out that in this way "the perpetrator of this act denies and belittles the circumstances in which people were killed en masse, which is a deep insult to the victims and survivors."
Lawyer Mirnes Adjanovic said that if the state prosecution receives a complaint, it is obliged to investigate and find out who is responsible. He specified that it is easy to trace digital traces, such as IP addresses and user accounts, which can serve as key evidence to identify the perpetrator.
“The person responsible for adding this fake location should be prosecuted according to the law. This situation also raises an important question about the responsibility of digital platforms such as Google, which must take a more active role in prevention and more effective monitoring in order to prevent similar abuses in the future," stressed Ajanovic.
The "Ratko Mladic Park" tag was visible for a week before Google removed it from the map.
Gabriela Ciorean, a communications manager at Google, explained that automated systems and trained operators work constantly to monitor maps for suspicious behavior, including incorrect location changes.
Ciorean noted that Google has made it easier for users to report misleading locations and inappropriate content.
BGNES recalls that during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina /BiH/ (1992-95), tens of thousands of Bosniaks from the surrounding areas sought shelter in Srebrenica, fleeing the attacks of Bosnian Serb forces against their towns and villages. For three years, Bosnian Serb forces besieged the enclave and shelled it. They control access routes and impede international humanitarian aid such as food and medicine. People are camping in the stairwells and corridors of apartment buildings, in cars and in public buildings such as the school and sports centre, while others have no shelter at all and huddle outside in temperatures that drop to -25ºC during winter nights.
In April 1993, when the city came under tank and artillery fire from the Serbs, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 819 declaring Srebrenica a "safe zone".
Two years later, on July 11, the Bosnian Serb army led by General Radko Mladic captured Srebrenica, prompting tens of thousands of refugees to flee to the Dutch forces' compound in Potocari on the outskirts of the city.
The peacekeepers retreat ingloriously to the UN base along with thousands of refugees, mostly women and children.
Urging the Muslim population of Srebrenica to surrender, Mladic promised that those who laid down their arms and submitted would be spared.
"Allah can't save you, but Mladic can," the war criminal convicted in The Hague told Ibrahim Nuhanovic, a Muslim civilian interpreter, during a videotaped meeting a few hours before the massacre began.
A systematic extermination ensued over the next few days. Serbian forces commanded by General Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic massacred over 9,000 people. What happened was the largest massacre of civilians in Europe since World War II.
The bodies of the victims were dumped in mass graves. Later, the Serbs dug up many of them and reburied them to cover their tracks. Serbian war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic have been convicted by the Hague Tribunal for the genocide they committed. | BGNES
