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Bosnia probes fascist salutes at Croatian singer's concert
/ Photo: DAMIR SENCAR - AFP
Bosnia probes fascist salutes at Croatian singer's concert
Bosnian prosecutors said Thursday they were investigating reports of fans performing fascist salutes at a concert by an ultra-nationalist Croatian singer.
Videos emerged over the weekend from a concert by Croatian folk-rock singer Marko Perkovic, better known as Thompson, showing dozens of people in the crowd raising their right arms and chanting the slogan of the Ustasha -- Croatia's Nazi-aligned World War II regime.
The footage from a show in the Croat-majority south, which AFP has not been able to verify, triggered widespread condemnation inside Bosnia, including from European Union representatives and the Israeli ambassador.
The national prosecutors' office confirmed to AFP Thursday that it had received several complaints regarding the concert as well as a video recording.
Perkovic is banned from performing on stage in some European countries. But the 59-year-old singer is hugely popular in Croatia, with a concert in Zagreb last year drawing hundreds of thousands of fans.
He has long been accused of fascist sympathies, with one of his songs featuring the slogan of the Ustasha, while far-right symbols are often spotted among his concertgoers.
The Ustasha killed and persecuted hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Croats and Roma during World War II.
The footage was recorded at a concert late last week in Bosnia's southern Siroki Brijeg region, according to local media.
Bosnian Serb political leaders called for Perkovic to be banned from the country after the performance, while international representatives urged action from authorities.
"The glorification and trivialisation of fascist ideologies have no place in a democratic society," Bosnia's EU delegation said.
The Bosnian missions of the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe also issued a joint statement expressing "concern" over the footage.
But in a response on Perkovic's Facebook page, the singer's management said he never performed the salute during his concert and rejected accusations of encouraging fascism.
"Thompson has never glorified, and will never glorify, Nazism or fascism," it said.
J.P.Hoffmann--BlnAP
