Portal talk:Current events/2018 April 11

Vojislav Seselj entry
The Al Jazeera article, unfortunately, contains several material errors that are repeated in the entry. The entry also makes false assertions that are simultaneously unsupported by, and in fact contradicted in, the article.

This is the entry that was added:


 * The International Criminal Court finds radical nationalist Serb Vojislav Seselj guilty of war crimes against Bosnians during the Balkans war and sentences him to ten years in prison. He is immediately released as he served more than eleven years in the court's custody, and takes to Twitter to declare himself "proud of my war crimes". (al-Jazeera)

The errors / unsupported assertions are as follows:


 * 1) Seselj was found guilty by the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, not the International Criminal Court. The two are entirely different institutions. The article does say "International Criminal Court", but this is incorrect. Here is the actual appeals judgment (i.e. the primary source).
 * 2) Seselj was found guilty of crimes against humanity, he was not found guilty of war crimes. These are two entirely different categories of crimes. The article does say "war crimes", but once again this is incorrect. I once again refer to the actual appeals judgment (see page 78).
 * 3) The entry claims that he was found guilty of crimes against Bosnians. This is both untrue and unsupported by the article. The article correctly states that "The tribunal found Seselj guilty of inciting hate crimes with his nationalist speeches. One speech he gave to a Serb crowd in May 1992 sparked atrocities against ethnic Croats in Vojvodina" and that the Appeals Chamber "maintained its ruling from the first verdict in 2016, that there was not enough evidence to prove a systematic attack was organised by Seselj against Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims)." It should be noted that Vojvodina is in Serbia, not in Bosnia. The press release from the Mechanism's website states that "In particular, the Appeals Chamber found that the Trial Chamber erred in not holding Mr. Šešelj responsible for a speech he gave in Hrtkovci, Vojvodina (Serbia) on 6 May 1992 calling for the expulsion of the non-Serbian population."
 * 4) The entry claims that Seselj was "immediately released", which is inaccurate because he was released in 2014 (as is noted in the Al Jazeera article). He was not even present during the reading of the judgment.

While Seselj indisputably made the Twitter statement, the sole reason I removed it was because the source that I cited did not contain it. I chose a source that did not contain inaccurate information. If someone wishes to find an accurate source that contains that statement, I would not object. – Zntrip 05:21, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for your detailed explanation, that should clear things up and it is greatly appreciated. -- BobTheIP editing as 2.28.13.227 (talk) 15:13, 14 April 2018 (UTC)