ZAGREB, Dec 20 (Hina) - Croatian Prime Minister Ivica Racan on Friday signed an agreement with the Serb Orthodox Church (SPC) and Islamic Community in Croatia. The agreement deals with matters of common interest.
ZAGREB, Dec 20 (Hina) - Croatian Prime Minister Ivica Racan on
Friday signed an agreement with the Serb Orthodox Church (SPC) and
Islamic Community in Croatia. The agreement deals with matters of
common interest. #L#
Deputy Prime Minister Goran Granic, who took part, as the president
of the government's Commission for Relations with Religious
Communities, in the negotiations leading up to the agreement and
pointed out that the agreements were closely tied to exercising
minority rights in Croatia.
The agreements specify that the right to religious expression
should be enabled institutionally. Representatives of the Orthodox
and Islamic communities will be allowed to act in the capacity of
pastoral workers in hospitals and penitentiaries.
Equality of the faithful in institutions will be ensured for the
faithful of alternative religions with regard to military
recruitment. This means that no-one will be compelled to eat food
that is not in keeping with their religious practise for instance.
The agreement defines financing too - one million euros for the SPC
annually and 427,000 euros for the Islamic community - that is to be
earmarked from the State Budget.
The agreement however does not regulate the question of property
returns for religious communities because this is dealt with in
legislature relevant to all citizens.
It is possible to perhaps speed up the restitution of religious
property required for religious rites and so the government
proposed that representatives of religious communities compile a
list of priorities of relevant buildings, Granic said.
Metropolite for Zagreb-Ljubljana and Italy for the SPC, Jovan and
Mufti Sevko Omerbasic expressed their satisfaction with the signed
agreements.
Metropolite Jovan pointed out that he was pleased because the
signed agreement with the SPC in Croatia could enhance Croatia's
interests in accomplishing its aims towards accessing European
integrations.
Mufti Omerbasic pointed out that the signed agreement was a
significant event for the Islamic community in Croatia and Muslims
in Croatia were in great expectation of this significant event
because it will enable them to express their faith freely and
without fear that they could be pointed out, as was the case in other
countries.
He added that Muslims in Croatia would promote Islamic values
towards European integration.
The agreements were formulated on the same principle as the
agreement signed with the Catholic Church and the government hopes
that similar agreements will be signed with remaining religious
communities in the country.
The government emphasised that the agreements were necessary for
Croatia and were significant for democratic coexistence and were by
no means signed simply due to international pressure.
The signing today was attended by representatives of Christian
religious communities and the Jewish community in Croatia.
(Hina) sp sb