Hug provokes responses from Muslim community

Video and photographs of Bosniak Muslim student Nadia Delimedjac from Novi Pazar and Serb student Sava Nikolic from Cuprija were posted hundreds of times on social media showing her in a hijab crying and him in a traditional Serb cap (Shaykacha) with a Serbian flag draped around his shoulders. They were initially photographed at an earlier protest in Kraljevo, she wearing a hijab and a red Arab scarf around her head and he with a flag draped over his shoulders and the Shaykacha on his head standing next to each other.

The video on the march showed him hugging her while she cried after seeing him.

That hug and his kiss of her hijab-covered head drew criticism from the more radical Muslim community in both her native Novi Pazar and neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina with some even calling for her death for bringing shame on her family and community. Sava stood up in her defense saying she should not be attacked because he did not know Muslim custom which banned young women from hugs by men who aren’t part of their family.

The more liberal in the Muslim community also stood up in her defense with one Imam saying no one should attack a sister fighting for justice.

A large number of people in both the Muslim and Serbian Orthodox Christian communities have said that one of the most important things achieved by the student protests is the dismissal of nationalist and discriminatory rhetoric and sentiments which prevailed during the 1990s.