Text of report by Serbian independent news agency FoNet
Belgrade, 11 January: The Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Ministry today condemned the forcible removal of the plaque from the building of the Serbia-Montenegro consulate in Rijeka.
The Ministry's statement said that Croatia's authorized bodies were expected to take all measures necessary to identify and punish the perpetrators.
Source: FoNet news agency, Belgrade, in Serbian 1546 gmt 11 Jan 06
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Text of report by Croatian TV on 11 January
[Announcer] The Serb community in Croatia and NGOs are again concerned about attacks against citizens of Serb nationality. Around 50 attacks were officially registered last year, most of them taking place in the Zadar and Sibenik hinterland. However, the last one happened on Orthodox Christmas Eve in very centre of Zagreb.
[Reporter Ognjen Golubic] While he was returning home from a Christmas Eve party, Svetozar Djordjevic was intercepted by two unknown persons outside his building in Zagreb's Savica and attacked from behind. They pulled him to the ground and beat him unconscious. He did not call the police after the attack, but he had done so twice in December after receiving verbal threats from his neighbours.
[Zagreb police spokesman Krunoslav Borovec] What is mostly mentioned here are problems in connection with communal life in one place, in the same residential building, and the habits of certain residents. Whether this involves ethnic intolerance or not, I wouldn't dare make such qualifications.
[Reporter] The police say that in view of a lack of information they do not know whether there will be enough elements for criminal charges in this case. Djordjevic was advised to lodge a private complaint over the verbal threats he received.
[President of Civic Council for Human Rights Zoran Pusic] Physical violence is something that should not be tolerated in a civilized society, but these things unfortunately do happen. What is dangerous is if the state tolerates this, and the state tolerates it if the perpetrators of such violence go unpunished.
[Reporter] The Serb community in Croatia points out that the attacks will continue as long as the relevant institutions and the church do not rise up against violent individuals.
[Serb MP Milorad Pupovac] Obviously they are not reacting to everything equally. The deputy premier [Jadranka Kosor] yesterday reacted to certain events [police raid on veterans' association office in Zagreb] while unfortunately failing to react to others. In this respect, we really need a society of balanced order and equal justice for all.
[Reporter] The Djordjevic family did not want to make statements before the 75-year-old Svetozar is released from hospital where he is recovering from his injuries.
Source: HRT1 TV, Zagreb, in Croatian 1830 gmt 11 Jan 06
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http://news.serbianunity.net/bydate/2006/January_13/15.html?w=p
Text of report in English by Croatian news agency HINA
Osijek, 11 January: The leader of the Croatian Helsinki Committee (HHO), Zarko Puhovski, has said that the HHO's last annual report showed that the human rights situation in Croatia deteriorated in 2005, following a trend of improvement from between 1996 and 2004.
Speaking at a panel discussion organized by the nongovernmental organization "Centre for Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights" in the eastern city of Osijek on Wednesday, Puhovski ascribed the deterioration in the human rights situation to a sudden rise in the number of complaints about police conduct, in the number of incidents aimed against the largest ethnic minority, i.e. Serbs, and the government's indecisive conduct regarding the rights of the most vulnerable categories of the society.
Asked to comment on a recent police raid of the offices of a war veterans' organization in Zagreb, Puhovski said that the behaviour of policemen in the operation reflected a long-standing problem of lack of experience in the treatment of disabled persons. In this context, Puhovski said that it was irrelevant how one had become a disabled person.
According to Puhovski, in Croatia it is still common to seek privileges instead of rights, which he said was a problem.
He also commented on the insistence of the UN war crimes tribunal to prevent the public presentation of a testimony of a protected witness. "Formally, this is probably correct, but in terms of content, it is pointless," Puhovski said explaining that the idea of a head of state being a protected witness was illogical.
On Monday evening, the police raided the offices of a war veterans' organization in Zagreb to prevent the presentation of a protected testimony which was to take place in the said offices.
The testimony was given by the current Croatian President Stjepan Mesic before the Hague tribunal in the trial of Bosnian Croat Tihomir Blaskic. Mesic was an opposition politician at the time.
Source: HINA news agency, Zagreb, in English 1948 gmt 11 Jan 06
