Bosnian Serbs to hold disputed vote amid ethnic tensions

[WorldNews]

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By Gordana Katana BANJA LUKA, Bosnia (Reuters) - Bosnian Serbs vote on Sunday in a referendum over a disputed national holiday, defying Bosnia'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 Jan. 9 as "Statehood Day" in the Serb Republic part of Bosnia, will be the first since the 1992 vote on secession from Yugoslavia that ignited three years of ethnic war in which 100,000 were killed. 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.

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