Besnainou and EJC secretary-general Serge Cwajgenbaum, who are on a visit to the Zagreb Jewish Municipality, discussed with Mesic the need to educate young people about the Holocaust, the situation in the Near East and restitution of nationalised property, an issue that was also due to be discussed at talks with Prime Minister Ivo Sanader later in the day.
Commenting on recent anti-Semitic incidents in Croatia, Besnainou told Hina that they had acquainted President Mesic with their position about the need to adopt a very harsh law that would condemn any anti-Semitic act.
Zagreb Vice Rabbi Zvi Eliezer Alonie was attacked last Saturday by two young men wearing T-shirts with Nazi symbols and the Jewish Municipality Zagreb recently received two threatening messages which insult victims of the Holocaust, the Jews and black people.
"In the European Union today we have even more harsh (anti-Semitic) laws and we hope that
Croatia, a candidate for the EU membership, will adopt very harsh laws so that the incidents like the recent ones can be punished appropriately," Besnainou said.
Laws and education are the only way to prevent the development of anti-Semitism, Besnainou said, adding that President Mesic has underlined the need to educate young people about the Holocaust.
The EJC leader also said that they had informed Mesic that the Jewish community in Europe was actively advocating Croatia's EU membership.
As for the issue of confiscated and nationalised property of the Jewish community and property restitution, Besnainou said that Mesic had given assurances that the issue was being dealt with.
The ECJ works with the World Jewish Restitution Organisation and will apply the experience of some other countries to help Croatia deal with that issue so that compensation mechanisms are applied in cases where property restitution is no longer possible, Besnainou said.
He added that they also had a very open talk about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his calls for erasing the Israeli state and negating the Holocaust and that they reached agreement that the EU should continue financially assisting the Palestinian people, but not the Hamas militants advocating the annihilation of the Hebrew state.
The Croatian parliament's Committee on Human and Minority Rights today voiced concern about the violence and intolerance directed against the Jewish community in Zagreb.
Committee chairman Furio Radin said at today's committee session that the Zagreb Jewish Municipality had received insulting letters and that a rabbi was attacked by skinheads in downtown Zagreb. Radin also pointed to ethnically motivated incidents directed against Serbs.
He voiced concern that the amendments submitted by the committee to the final text of the Penal Code would not be adopted. The amendments urge harsher punishment for incidents motivated by a different ethnicity or characteristic of an individual.
Radin said that failure to adopt the amendments would be a serious blow in the light of the recent incidents, adding that nobody had discussed the issue with him despite statements that the Penal Code had not been amended yet because negotiations on the matter were under way.