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Serbia sends protest note to Croatia over Stepinac - - on B92.net The Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday handed a protest note to Croatian Ambassador in Belgrade Gordan Markotic. Source: Tanjug Wednesday, July 27, 2016 | 09:08 The Serbian Foreign Ministry in Belgrade (mfa.gov.rs) The note, announced <http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2016&mm=07&dd=26&nav_id=98729 > by Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic earlier in the day, protests in the strongest terms against the annulment <http://www.b92.net/eng/news/region.php?yyyy=2016&mm=07&dd=22&nav_id=98694> of the 1946 guilty verdict against Croatian Catholic cleric Alojzije Stepinac- a decisions seen as a rehabilitation of fascism and the Ustasha-led Independent State of Croatia (NDH). In the note, the ministry said the UN and the EU explicitly forbade restoration of fascism and fascist ideologies. The Republic of Serbia is appalled by the rehabilitation of the Nazi Ustasha Independent State of Croatia. Stepinac's words at the Easter of 1941 that "the Independent State of Croatia was created by the grace of God, the prudent and self-sacrificing work of the Leader (Ante Pavelic) and the Ustasha movement, as well as by the will of our allies (Hitler and Mussolini)," and that the "Independent State of Croatia is the most illustrious event in the life of the Croatian nation," best speak about Stepinac and those rehabilitating him, the note said. Through public statements and press releases, as well as the decision to annul the Stepinac verdict - which Ephraim Zuroff, director of the Jerusalem-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre, described as disgraceful - the Croatian authorities and the government are directly supporting those in Croatia who are against regional reconciliation and stability and who represent world views that are contrary to the basic principles of the civilization and the foundations the UN and the EU rest upon, the note said. The rehabilitation of Archbishop Stepinac, the vicar of the Independent State of Croatia's genocidal regime whose "priests" and "nuns" were the commanders of the Jasenovac and Jastrebarsko concentration camps, is creating a climate and sentiments that are resulting in attacks against Serbs, the note said. During his trial after WWII, Stepinac cynically defended the forced conversion of over 200,000 Serbs from Croatia to Catholicism by saying it had not been a conversion, but a "religious transition", the note said. The ministry expressed concern over the anti-Serb sentiment in the Republic of Croatia, which it said had been developing freely over the past years and had a clear tendency to escalate. In 2016 alone, as many as 26 incidents and cases of hate speech against Serbs have been registered in Croatia, the ministry said in the note. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "serbia" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/serbia. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
