Serbs vote over disputed national holiday

Bosnia’s ethnic Serbs have begun voting in a referendum over a disputed national holiday, defying a ban by the country’s highest court and Western pressure to call off a process that risks stoking ethnic tensions in the divided Balkan country. The referendum, on whether to mark January 9 as “Statehood Day” in the Serb Republic […]

Bosnia’s ethnic Serbs have begun voting in a referendum over a disputed national holiday, defying a ban by the country’s highest court and Western pressure to call off a process that risks stoking ethnic tensions in the divided Balkan country.
The referendum, on whether to mark January 9 as “Statehood Day” in the Serb Republic part of Bosnia, on Sunday is the first since a 1992 vote on secession from then-Yugoslavia that ignited three years of conflict in which 100,000 were killed.
Polling stations across the predominantly Serb region in Bosnia opened at 05:00 GMT and will close at 17:00 GMT. Organisers said the first preliminary results were expected within 48 hours after the vote.
The Sarajevo-based Constitutional Court has ruled that the holiday would be illegal because it coincides with a Serbian Orthodox Christian holiday and so discriminates against Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats living in the Serb Republic. The court also banned the referendum.