Music openly calling for violence against a religious or ethnic group or nationality, glorifying genocide and celebrating war crimes and war criminals has no place on worldwide music distribution channels such as YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon, Apple, SoundCloud, and others. 

Albums such as Stante pase i ustase, Rat i mir, Zivece ovaj narod, and others, by Mirko Pajcin, more commonly known as Baja Mali Knindza, openly call for violence, glorify genocide and celebrate war crimes committed by the aggressor against Bosnian Muslims and Catholics between 1992 and 1995. Such music is widely distributed and available through channels such as YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon, Apple, SoundCloud, and others.

During the aggression and genocide on Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 90’s, these songs were used as a call to violence, to hype aggressor’s troops and paramilitary formations into committing genocide.

Songs such as Ne Volim the Alija is about President of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 90s, Alija Izetbegovic. The song calls for ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims and states that hundreds of dead bodies will float down river Drina every day. Song also refers to Bosnian cities such as Bosanski Brod, Prijedor, Sana, Kozarac, where thousands of Muslims were brutally executed by the aggressor, whose political and military leaders were later convicted of various crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia. In the song Cuti Cuti Ujko, Pajcin sings “Shut up, shut up, Ujko, I will kill you” referring to a person of Croatian nationality and “Shut up, Shut up Mujo, I will kill you” referring to a Bosnian Muslim. The song Tata (Dad) contains lyrics stating “my dad is a war criminal, dare to prosecute him”. Further, the stage name of Mirko Pajcin refers to a paramilitary formation “Knindze”, who committed atrocities in the Krajina region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as in Croatia. 

This music is in direct violation of:

Spotify’s Dangerous Content Rules that advocate or glorify serious physical harm towards a group, promotes or supports terrorism or violent extremism, targets an identifiable group for harassment or related abuse, incites violence or hatred towards a group based on race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, and other characteristics associated with systemic discrimination and marginalization

Pandora’s Hate Speech, and Violence and Illegal Activities Rules

YouTube’s Violent and Dangerous Content Rules of Harassment and Cyber Bullying, Harmful or Dangerous Content, Hate Speech, Violent Criminal Organizations, Violent or graphic content

Amazon’s Religious advocacy, demeaning religion, and Threatening, abusive, intolerant, or harassing, or content that advocates or discriminates against a protected group

Apple’s Cultural Sensitivity and Other Content Not Permitted Rules

SoundCloud’s Violence and Threatening Behavior, and Hate Speech Rules

These calls to violence songs by Pajcin continue to garner tens of millions of listeners across various music distribution channels. Most recently, the song Ne Volim the Alija even aired on CBS 13’s Good Morning Sacramento on September 9, 2022. Any music that openly calls for and promotes violence against an ethnic or religious group or nationality, celebrates war crimes and genocide should not exist in wide music distribution channels such as Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, Pandora, Apple, SoundCloud, or others, and should promptly be removed. 

July 11th has been proclaimed around the world as the Srebrenica Remembrance Day. Srebrenica is considered the worst atrocity in Europe since the Holocaust. While Srebrenica’s and Bosnian mothers, wives, sisters and grandmothers are burying partial remains of their loved ones found in hundreds of mass graves all over Bosnia this month, other regions are “celebrating Srebrenica” by hosting Baja Mali Knindza’s concert at Banjaluka City Square on July 16th, 2023. 

It would be practically impossible to search for every instance of every song through every music distribution channel to file individual reports to take down this content. Therefore, we petition Daniel Ek (CEO, Spotify), Alexander Lacik (CEO, Pandora), Neil Mohan (CEO, YouTube), Andy Jassy (CEO, Amazon), Tim Cook (CEO, Apple), Eliah Seton (CEO, SoundCloud) and others to do what’s ethical. We ask you to systemically take down all content belonging to Baja Mali Knindza or any other performer calling for violence against a religious or ethnic group or nationality, or celebrating and glorifying genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina.