News : Bosnians want Serb group shut down on Facebook

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Over 6,000 Bosnians joined in less than 48 hours a group on social networking site Facebook which wants to shut down a Serb nationalist group celebrating the massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica.

The group, created on Monday under the name "Close Group Noz Zica Srebrenica," alerted administrators about the language of hatred against Muslims on the site.

"Administrator, we ask you to close the group 'Noz, Zica, Srebrenica', which glorifies the acts of genocide that took place in Srebrenica, where 8,000 men and boys were murdered," read the Bosnian group header on Facebook.

"In addition, this group propagates hatred to all Muslims," it said. Muslims or Bosniaks account for nearly half of the population of Bosnia, which they share with Roman Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs.

Young Serbian nationalists set up the group "Noz Zica Srebrenica" (The Knife, The Wire, Srebrenica), which relates to the detention and killing of around 8,000 Muslim men and boys by the Bosnian Serb forces in 1995. The group was set up in Serbian Cyrillic script.

"For all those who respect the acts of Ratko Mladic," the 930-member group said in an appeal to new members. "For all those who think that Muslims are best on the spit and while swimming in sulphur acid," the site said.

The Srebrenica massacre, seen as Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two, was masterminded by Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, who was jailed in July, and his military chief General Ratko Mladic, who is still at large.

Many in Serbia, including young people, still regard the two men as national heroes. But quite a few Serbs have opposed the group's calls on the Internet, calling them fascist and shameful.

No one at Facebook was immediately available to comment.

(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Louise Ireland)