GENEVA, 21 March (Hina) - Croatian Foreign Minister Tonino Picula on Tuesday in Geneva demanded that the United Nations end the current way of monitoring the respect of human rights in Croatia and offer help to their support. Speaking
at a session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Picula said that after the election of new Croatian authorities, resolute to implement democracy, the rule of law, as well as to protect human rights, the monitoring of the respect of human rights, that the United Nations had been conducting so far, was incompatible with the current situation. We believe that the mandate of the special rapporteur for Croatia needs to be ended and that Croatia should be excluded from the joint resolution, Picula stressed. He said the protection and promotion of human rights in Croatia could be carried out more efficiently via more immediate and more practical cooperation
GENEVA, 21 March (Hina) - Croatian Foreign Minister Tonino Picula
on Tuesday in Geneva demanded that the United Nations end the
current way of monitoring the respect of human rights in Croatia and
offer help to their support.
Speaking at a session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission
in Geneva, Picula said that after the election of new Croatian
authorities, resolute to implement democracy, the rule of law, as
well as to protect human rights, the monitoring of the respect of
human rights, that the United Nations had been conducting so far,
was incompatible with the current situation.
We believe that the mandate of the special rapporteur for Croatia
needs to be ended and that Croatia should be excluded from the joint
resolution, Picula stressed.
He said the protection and promotion of human rights in Croatia
could be carried out more efficiently via more immediate and more
practical cooperation or via projects of technical cooperation in
the field of human rights.
Picula also said that the current cooperation with international
organisations, such as the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe, would help
Croatia to maintain the momentum in the fulfilling of its
obligations in the respect of human rights.
The Croatian Foreign Minister expressed dissatisfaction about the
fact the United Nations monitored human rights in Croatia via
resolutions and reports of the special rapporteur which included
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia
regardless of the differences in the situation of human rights in
the three countries which could not be compared.
Croatia believes that such an approach was inappropriate and the
past experience demonstrated that it leads to generalisations and
the automatic transfer of outdated information, Picula said.
He added that Croatia believed that the stability in the region was
inseparable from the security, democratisation and human rights.
The Croatian Minister also stressed that the return of refugees was
the most important humanitarian issue for the new Croatian
Government. He informed the United Nations Human Right Commission
that Croatian had already made a project on the return of 16,500
Croatian Serbs, who requested it, and that it would cancel legal
regulations which were discriminatory against Serbs and were
slowing down their return.
Picula also said the Croatian Government was determined to ensure
the independence of media, transform the Croatian Radio Television
into a public media, strengthen the protection of the rights of
minorities and offer support to non-governmental organisations and
civil initiatives.
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