Hundreds of Bosnian Muslims Celebrate Mosque Reopening
GRADISKA, Bosnia-Hercegovina, July 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Several hundred Bosnian Muslims gathered in the Serb-run town of Gradiska Saturday for a ceremony to mark the inauguration of a mosque that was rebuilt after being destroyed during the 1992-95 war.
Several hundred local policemen provided security at the ceremony at the Obradovacka mosque, the first to be reopened in Gradiska, a town in the Serb-run part of Bosnia known as Republika Srpska, AFP reported.
"We were promised to be provided with the highest level of security and we believe that it will be so", Gradiska mufti Besim Seper said Friday.
The original Obradovacka mosque, built three centuries ago, was destroyed by Bosnian Serbs during the war along with other nine mosques in Gradiska, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Banja Luka.
The mosque was rebuilt from funds largely donated by Muslims who lived in Gradiska before the war but were in many cases chased from their homes by Serbs.
Work on rebuilding the Obradovacka mosque started in August last year and another Gradiska mosque is due to be reopened on August 11.
Ceremonies in May to mark the rebuilding of two mosques in the Bosnian Serb towns of Banja Luka and Trebinje sparked violent anti-Muslim riots which left one Muslim dead and several dozen injured.
Representatives of the international community in Bosnia have condemned the violence in Banja Luka and Trebinje. An investigation into the apparent failure of the local police to intervene was under way.
In Trebinje, the head of the Islamic community in Bosnia, Mustafa Ceric, had reacted by saying, that "it was a clear case of violation of basic human rights, but despite everything the mosque will be rebuilt."
Three top Bosnian Serb Interior Ministry officials lost their jobs as a result of last month's clashes in Banja Luka and in the southern town of Trebinje, when mosque ceremonies were blocked by violent protests.
Banja Luka was the second largest Bosnian town before the civil war but most of its substantial Muslim population either fled or were expelled early in the war.
All 15 mosques in the town itself and 90 in the surrounding locality were destroyed.
Post-war Bosnia is divided into the Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation.
The destruction of Islamic and Roman Catholic monuments was part of the Serbs' war aim of removing all signs of Muslim life from the 70 percent of Bosnia they controlled during the country's 1992-95 war.
Bosnian Serb officials have always denied any involvement in the destruction of the mosques.
