At the beginning of this year Croatia became the first country in the region to offer its law enforcement officers training in combating hate crime.
The police training programme is part of the OSCE's efforts to combat hate crime and is designed according to each country's specific circumstances.
I commend the Croatian government for demonstrating a political readiness to translate its written commitments to combat intolerance and hate crime into concrete actions, ODIHR Director Christian Strohal said.
Marijan Benko, Police Director in the Ministry of the Interior, said that the Croatian police were using all the human, technical and material resources in identifying the perpetrators of the gravest crimes, as recently shown by the successful resolution of a double murder and robbery case in the northern town of Djurdjevac.
In order to be successful like this, constant training of police officers is necessary, because only that way can we effectively fight all forms of crime, including those motivated by hatred, Benko added.
The memorandum commits the Croatian authorities and the ODIHR to continue their cooperation in training police officers in Croatia and other OSCE regions and to engage Croatian hate crime training experts in providing training and support to other OSCE member states.