On October 10, 2026, my Facebook account was locked. Two days earlier, the European Parliament had adopted a resolution calling for an EU strategy against Islamist entryism and the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, a development I openly welcomed.
The lockout followed months of public discreditation campaigns, intimidation, explicit threats, and repeated attempts to interfere with my ability to reach an audience. Individuals associated with Islamist propaganda circles have portrayed me as a traitor, encouraged hostility toward me, and attempted to establish where I live with my family in Prague.
What has been striking is how rarely these attacks involve examining what I have written. My opponents could challenge my evidence or dispute my conclusions. Instead, too many question my loyalty and try to make speaking publicly unpleasant enough that I eventually stop.
I am a Bosniak. I am telling my fellow Bosniaks something that too many of our politicians, journalists, intellectuals, and self-proclaimed liberals are unwilling to say: we have an Islamist problem.
Criticism Is Not Betrayal
This problem was not invented in Belgrade or Zagreb. Nor is acknowledging it an accusation against every Bosniak who practices Islam.
We have political and intellectual currents that seek to make religious identity the foundation of political legitimacy, excuse or romanticize Islamist movements abroad, and treat ideological disagreement as betrayal of the nation. Some people invoke Western democracy when demanding rights for Bosniaks, then become uncomfortable when another Bosniak exercises his freedom to question them.
Such currents exist in many societies. What concerns me is how much energy influential sections of our public life devote to denying or explaining them away. When I published “Sarajevo’s Islamist Drift: A Growing Concern” in Visegrad24 on March 15, I examined reactions to developments in Iran, the history of Iranian influence in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and sympathy expressed by certain Bosniak voices toward Tehran and its allies.
Rather than addressing the incidents I described, some critics questioned my motives or portrayed the article as another attack on Bosniaks. Apparently, criticism becomes especially suspicious when a Bosniak takes it to an international audience. The assumption is extraordinary: that preserving a flattering image abroad matters more than allowing Bosniaks to speak honestly about their own society.
I have never accepted that loyalty requires concealing our problems, particularly when those demanding silence help make the problems harder to discuss.
Who Gets Called a Traitor?
On September 14, STAV published Mustafa Drnišlić’s article “Kažnjavanje izdajnika je imperativ bošnjačkog opstanka” - “Punishing Traitors Is Imperative for Bosniak Survival.”
Its targets included independent intellectuals and social-media commentators accused of Islamophobia or working for foreign interests. The article advocated punishment and social exclusion, discussing judicial institutions and the streets as places where supposed traitors could face consequences. Public contempt, isolation, and exclusion were presented as instruments of national self-preservation.
Read that again. People exercising freedom of speech and expressing different opinions were being discussed as targets for punishment.
Where was the sustained outrage from those who ordinarily defend democracy, human rights, and European values? I saw no comparable response from many of those circles. There was criticism elsewhere, but their silence was revealing.
Imagine the reaction if a Serbian or Croatian nationalist publication had printed an equivalent argument about punishing dissidents in the streets. Many Bosniak liberals rightly condemn Serbian and Croatian religious nationalism, denial of the Srebrenica genocide, the glorification of convicted war criminals, and attacks on Bosnia’s sovereignty. I share those concerns. But those threats cannot grant Bosniak political culture permanent immunity from scrutiny.
Too often, when the discussion turns inward, the excuses begin. The timing is wrong. The terminology is too harsh. Foreign audiences might misunderstand. Bosnia’s enemies will exploit the criticism. The fear that someone might exploit an uncomfortable truth cannot put our own political and religious movements beyond examination.
Different Movements, Overlapping Interests
Precision matters. Bosnia’s Islamist landscape does not consist of a single movement.
It includes intellectual traditions influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood and other currents of Islamic political thought; politicians who use religion and communal solidarity to mobilize support; conservative religious organizations whose positions deserve scrutiny without automatically being classified as extremist; and much smaller circles associated with Salafist-jihadist radicalization.
Iranian revolutionary Islamism, the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, and Salafist jihadism differ substantially in theology, organization, and objectives. They have competed and fought against one another. But recognizing those differences does not require pretending their adherents can never find common political ground. Hostility toward Israel or the United States, opposition to secular politics, and suspicion of domestic critics can bring otherwise competing actors together.
The issue is not whether one headquarters directs every incident. It is how ideological influences, political incentives, and institutional relationships overlap, and how certain ideas acquire protection from criticism because they are presented as expressions of Muslim identity.
Our History Is Not Beyond Discussion
The intellectual roots deserve examination.
The Young Muslims movement, Alija Izetbegović’s 1970 Islamic Declaration, and the relationship between religious revival and political organization are part of our history. Researchers have identified connections between Izetbegović’s thinking and wider currents of Islamic reformism and political Islam, including ideas associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Other scholars dispute the claim that the Declaration was a program for an Islamic state in Bosnia, noting that its immediate subject was the wider Muslim world. Those disagreements matter. They are a reason to examine the text, not an excuse to avoid it. We should be able to ask how religious and political ideas influenced our leadership without being accused of trying to delegitimize Bosnia’s independence.
During the 1992–1995 war, Bosnia’s struggle for survival also brought foreign Islamist volunteers, Iranian assistance, and external networks into contact with Bosnian institutions. The overwhelming majority of those who defended Bosnia were not foreign jihadists. The legitimacy of their struggle does not depend on pretending those groups were absent. We can honor the defense of our country while scrutinizing the ideological interests of outsiders who attached themselves to it.
Radicalization Has Cost Bosnian Lives
The consequences extend beyond intellectual debates.
In 2010, a bombing at the Bugojno police station killed a police officer. In 2011, Mevlid Jašarević opened fire on the US Embassy in Sarajevo. In 2015, attacks in Zvornik and Rajlovac killed police officers and members of Bosnia’s Armed Forces. US State Department terrorism reporting recorded contemporary estimates that approximately 300 Bosnian citizens had traveled to Iraq and Syria to become foreign terrorist fighters by 2015.
These cases involved different individuals and circumstances. They cannot justify accusing an entire population of supporting terrorism. Bosnian institutions and Islamic religious leaders condemned attacks and undertook counterterrorism efforts.
But the incidents establish something that should not require argument: Islamist radicalization has had concrete consequences in Bosnia, including the deaths of its own citizens. Its adherents do not need to constitute a majority. Organized minorities can intimidate communities, influence institutions, and damage a country without winning a national election.
What Our Institutions Celebrate
Political influence can be harder to confront because it operates through familiar personalities and respectable institutions.
Bakir Izetbegović was photographed displaying the four-finger Rabaa gesture associated with supporters of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi’s ousted government. Reports also described his reception of a Brotherhood delegation during his time in the Presidency.
The gesture does not establish organizational membership. Nobody needs to invent membership to ask what political message a member of Bosnia’s highest institution intended to communicate.
The treatment of Brotherhood-linked intellectuals deserves similar attention. Following Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s death in September 2022, Stav published an admiring tribute celebrating his scholarship and influence. The Islamic Community’s website also published a favorable account.
Qaradawi was widely described as a spiritual guide to the Muslim Brotherhood. He publicly supported Palestinian suicide bombings against Israeli targets. His condemnation of other forms of terrorism and support for electoral politics also belong in the record, but they do not erase the violence he justified.
When influential institutions present such a figure primarily through admiration, we should ask which parts of his legacy they are legitimizing, and why its most disturbing elements receive so little attention.
Iran and the European Question
In November 2022, as Iranian women protested following Mahsa Amini’s death and against the violent enforcement of compulsory veiling, Bosnia and Herzegovina abstained on a UN General Assembly Third Committee resolution condemning human rights abuses in Iran.
Bosnia was the only European country to abstain. Ambassador Sven Alkalaj said he had followed instructions from the Foreign Ministry, then headed by Bisera Turković, who had previously met Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. The American Embassy and EU Delegation expressed regret over the abstention.
In 2026, by contrast, Bosnia aligned itself with further EU restrictive measures against Iran, a decision welcomed by the Council of the European Union. That deserves recognition.
But an official commitment to European integration does not establish a settled consensus throughout our institutions and society. A government can adopt the appropriate position while influential political and cultural circles continue expressing sympathy for the same authoritarian regime. Acknowledging one reality does not erase the other.
Solidarity Is Not a Blank Cheque
Since October 7, 2023, we have witnessed public discussions in which the murder of Israeli civilians was excused, Hamas was romanticized, and concern for Jewish victims was met with hostility or accusations of disloyalty.
Politicians and nationalist commentators have made Palestine a recurring test of domestic political virtue, as though representing Bosniaks in Sarajevo depended on the intensity of one’s rhetoric about the Middle East. Defending Palestinian rights is entirely compatible with condemning Hamas. Concern for Iranian civilians does not require admiration for the Islamic Republic. Yet those distinctions are too often blurred.
Sarajevo has witnessed large Palestinian solidarity demonstrations, public expressions of support for Iran, and displays of Palestinian, Iranian, and religious banners. Children have also been filmed in Baščaršija shouting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” Who taught them those slogans? What makes adults think this is an acceptable political education?
There have also been demonstrations supporting Ukraine, including after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. That should be acknowledged. Comparing the energy devoted to different international causes nevertheless remains a legitimate subject of inquiry. The size, symbolism, and rhetoric of gatherings reveal something about movements’ ability to mobilize. They do not establish what an entire population believes.
Evidence Without Invented Majorities
When this subject arises, somebody inevitably asks for representative polling on Bosniak attitudes toward Hamas, Islamist government, or sharia.
That is a legitimate demand when someone makes a numerical claim about public opinion. It does not remove the need to examine political activity that can be documented without a survey. There is relevant historical polling. A 2013 Pew Research Center study found that 15 percent of surveyed Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina favored making sharia the country’s official law, while 80 percent opposed it. That contradicts claims that Bosnian Muslims overwhelmingly wanted an Islamic legal system at the time. I have no interest in concealing it. It is also thirteen years old. It cannot settle contemporary attitudes toward Hamas or other Islamist movements.
The absence of current polling establishes neither widespread support nor widespread rejection. Public speeches, publications, demonstrations, and threats are evidence of what particular actors say and do. They are not representative samples, but neither are they meaningless. We need accurate measurement of public opinion and scrutiny of the organizations attempting to shape it.
The Cost of Looking Away
I am tired of people privately acknowledging a problem while publicly attacking anyone prepared to discuss it. There are Bosniak journalists, intellectuals, secular citizens, and practicing Muslims who reject intimidation and the exploitation of religion. Those who speak openly deserve recognition.
Others remain silent because criticism could cost them professional opportunities, social acceptance, or standing within their political circles. Some go further, discrediting critics in the hope that demonstrating loyalty will spare them similar treatment.
That cowardice has consequences. It allows extremists to claim they represent the nation while their opponents must defend their right to belong to it. It teaches younger people that independent thought is welcome only until it challenges the community’s self-appointed guardians.
My experience has made this painfully clear. Critics could have disputed my interpretation of Iranian influence, examined my sources, or challenged the historical connections I described. I would have welcomed that argument.
Instead, the dispute has repeatedly turned to personal loyalty, punishment, and my ability to maintain a public platform. I do not claim every opponent supports intimidation, or that every hostile reaction is organized by the same people. But threats and campaigns of public discreditation deserve investigation, not embarrassed silence.
Nobody Owns Bosniak Identity
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country of different peoples and faiths. Pluralism must also exist within those communities. A Bosniak should be free to be devoutly Muslim, culturally Muslim, secular, agnostic, atheist, Christian, conservative, or liberal without having his identity placed on trial.
He should be able to condemn Hamas while defending Palestinian civilians, criticize Iran while mourning Iranian civilian deaths, defend Bosnia’s independence while opposing the SDA, and question Izetbegović’s political legacy without being accused of betraying the victims of the war.
Political and religious authorities do not own Bosniak identity. Neither do the online enforcers who decide which Bosniaks deserve humiliation. The existence of competing political parties means little if questioning certain assumptions brings intimidation and organized exclusion.
What Must Change
Bosnia needs an independent examination of foreign ideological and financial influence, including networks connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, and other transnational Islamist movements. The same evidentiary standards should apply as in any investigation of foreign political interference.
Political leaders should explain their relationships with organizations whose commitments conflict with democratic pluralism. Religious institutions should confront the contradiction in celebrating figures who justified attacks on civilians while claiming to promote peace.
Journalists should be able to investigate these subjects without being denounced as enemies of Islam. Threats against dissenters should be treated as matters of public safety. Better research into religion, democracy, political violence, and foreign Islamist organizations should replace comforting assumptions.
I am not asking Bosniaks to abandon their religion, historical memory, or solidarity with other peoples. I am asking that these things stop being used to shield political ideas from examination.
Our history of persecution does not make every movement claiming to speak for us legitimate. The faith of an ordinary Bosniak is not the Muslim Brotherhood’s political program. Defending Bosnia does not require romanticizing Iran, Hamas, or any organization claiming a monopoly on Muslim solidarity. The right to believe includes the right to disbelieve, disagree, and reject religious authority in political life.
I have no intention of allowing those who threaten me to decide whether I am sufficiently Bosniak to speak about my own society. If their approval requires silence, they can keep it. Those who believe my arguments are wrong can challenge them through evidence and public debate. What they do not have is the right to make silence the price of belonging to our nation.
