DOCUMENTARY ON LAID-OFF POLICEMEN-PROTESTERS SHOWN IN DUGA RESA

DUGA RESA, Feb 16 (Hina)- A documentary on laid-off police officers who have been protesting for almost one year in St. Mark's Square in Zagreb, was shown in the town of Duga Resa (some 60 kilometres south of Zagreb) on Saturday, in the organisation of the association of the Croatian policemen-war veterans. #L# "Today it is exactly the 334th day of the protest being held by unassigned police officers who are staying in the sacristy of St. Mark's Church," said the association's leader, Filip Lacic, describing this as the longest protest in Croatia. "The aim of the association (...) is to inform the public about the unacceptable stand of Interior Minister Sime Lucin who claims that Croatian there are no longer unassigned policemen but only former policemen," Lacic, who is one of the protesters, added. Therefore, the policemen-protesters on Saturday sent a letter to the minister in which they pointed to the fact that "Serb terrorists, volunteers from "White Eagles" units and many who committed serious crimes" were employed instead of some these laid- off policemen. During the panel discussion and the showing of the documentary, the spectators were given a list with names of 28 policemen and their current job in the police for whom protesters asserted that they had been Serb terrorists involved in the armed rebellion in Croatia or who did not have required training and education for this job, but were, nonetheless, employed instead of the dismissed Croatian policemen. The protesters' lawyer, Vlado Makovic, spoke about the violation of the rights of his clients. He claimed that decisions on the termination of the employment of his clients were made "in accordance with secret criteria and a rule book on the reorganisation, which has never been published." The documentary, whose author is a journalist, Domagoj Margetic, will be shown in all Croatian counties. (hina) ms