U2’s Bono May Lose Bosnian Passport

Along with scores of former Islamic fighters and suspected terrorists, U2 frontman Bono Vox could be stripped of his Bosnian passport, local media reported over the weekend.

Bono who, with other world stars, worked to alleviate the plight of Bosnian residents during the 1992-95 war, received his honorary Bosnian passport from late president Alija Izetbegovic in 1997, when U2 performed at Sarajevo's Kosevo stadium.

Bono’s Bosnian citizenship became the focus of a major dispute over the weekend, with Bosnian Serb officials and media claiming that the country's laws do not allow for the conferral of honorary citizenships.

The dispute was apparently triggered by Bono’s recent statements during U2 concerts in Zagreb, Croatia, where he said that his Bosnian passport was one of his most treasured possessions.

“If we establish that a passport was given outside a regular legal procedure, we will have no other option but to take it away. We cut no slack to anybody, not even for Bono Vox,” Bosnia’s Civil Affairs Minister Sredoje Novic was quoted as saying over the weekend.

Over the past year, Bosnia has been reviewing and cancelling citizenships granted in an illegal manner over the previous two decades. Most cases concern several hundred former Islamic fighters who fought alongside Bosniak (Bosnian Muslims) forces during the war.

Some Sarajevo media organs and Bosnian officials saw Novic’s statement as another attempt by Bosnian Serb officials to undermine Bosnia’s symbols of statehood.

Sarajevo daily Dnevni Avaz called the move “scandalous” and quoted Novic’s deputy, Senad Sepic, as saying that this was an attempt to “besmirch everything valuable which anybody from the world has given to our country”.

Sepic said this sends out a wrong message to the world.