Bosnian Schools Boycott Over Language Row Spreads

Parents of some 130 Bosniak children from a primary school in Krizevici near the eastern Bosnian town of Zvornik have joined a schools boycott in a dispute over the name of their language.

Pupils remained outside class as protests grew against the decision of the Republika Srpska government to rename the Bosnian language "Bosniak".

By Tuesday, a week after the new school year started, more than 500 Bosniak schoolchildren had joined the boycott in six schools in the Zvornik municipality.

Bosniak politicians warned that the protest could soon spread to the rest of Republika Srpska, wherever Bosniak children attend schools.

"This is the first step," media reports cited Ilijaz Miralemovic, a member of the [main Bosniak] Party of Democratic Action, SDA, on Zvornik town council, as saying.

"Just like today in Krizevici, the boycott will in future most likely spread to all other schools where Bosniak children attend classes, until this problem is resolved," he said.

On Tuesday, Republika Srpska Education and Culture Minister Dane Malesevic's office reported that he had received a death threat in connection with the row.

The education ministry said in a press statement that Malesevic's office received a phone call on Monday during which an unknown person insulted the minister and his staff in ethnic and religious terms and because of the language dispute, threatened to "carve the Bosnian language on his forehead" and kill them all.

The dispute began a few years ago when Bosniak parents in the Serb-dominated entity demanded a curriculum that would better reflect their ethnicity.

It escalated at the end of the last school year in June when the Republika Srpska education ministry instructed all schools to start...