ZAGREB OF DISCRIMINATING AGAINST SERBS ZAGREB, Sept 2 (Hina) - Human Rights Watch presented in Zagreb on Tuesday its 60-page report on the process of return of ethnic Serbs to Croatia in which it claimed that the Croatian government
was practising ethnic discrimination against Serbs.
ZAGREB, Sept 2 (Hina) - Human Rights Watch presented in Zagreb on
Tuesday its 60-page report on the process of return of ethnic Serbs
to Croatia in which it claimed that the Croatian government was
practising ethnic discrimination against Serbs. #L#
The report, entitled 'Broken Promises: Impediments to Refugee
Return to Croatia', is the result of the American organisation's
two-year research.
The director of the HRW office in Brussels, Lotte Leicht, said that
the biggest problems with which Serb returnees were faced were
repossession of property, arbitrary arrests of Serbs suspected of
war crimes, and their discrimination in employment.
"Human Rights Watch believes that these problems are a result of
ethnic discrimination against Serbs by the Croatian government,"
the report reads.
The author of the report, Bogdan Ivanisevic, who is an HRW
investigator for the area of the former Yugoslavia, stressed that
impossibility of repossession of property and ethnic
discrimination in employment were two major problems which Serb
refugees were facing.
Leicht added that Croatia's government and parliament had made
progress by adopting laws on the protection of minority rights, but
she criticised obstacles in their enforcement, blaming both state
and local authorities for that.
According to her, Croat returnees and Bosnian Croats who found
shelter in Croatia are enjoying greater rights than Serb refugees.
She went on to say that the official figure of 96,500 Serb returnees
was exaggerated, given that many returnees left Croatia again after
experiencing many impediments in the return process.
Leicht said that the HRW did not assert that the incumbent
authorities were necessarily responsible for the cited problems,
but it accused Zagreb of failing to do anything to rectify the
situation, although it was obliged to improve it under its
international obligations and the Copenhagen criteria for an
applicant's entry into the EU.
The report also contains about 40 HRW recommendations to the
Croatian government for improving the return process.
(hina) ms sb