Bosnian Serbs to hold disputed vote amid ethnic tensions
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.
Voter turnout was a little more than 30 percent by 1100 GMT, referendum organisers said. Polling stations will close at 1700 GMT and preliminary results are expected within 48 hours. 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. The court also banned the referendum.
