TRUSIC, KOVACEVIC CLAIM WE ARE THE ONLY LEGITIMATE HHO

ZAGREB, Sept 8 (Hina) - There are no two Croatian Helsinki Committees (HHO) for human rights in Croatia, there is only the HHO which was founded in a completely legal and legitimate way and registered on August 22 into the association registry at the Ministry of Justice, Administration and Local Self-Government, the founders of the newly-established HHO said Friday. Zvonimir Trusic and Natko Kovacevic told a news conference in Zagreb the "former HHO" had ceased to exist three years ago because it had not harmonised its Statute with the Law on Associations. Leaders of the "former HHO" who did not wish to re-register the association, calling for "civil non-compliance" are now requesting assistance from Justice Minister Stjepan Ivanisevic, one of the authors of the Law on Associations which the HHO does not respect, Kovacevic asserted. The International Helsinki Federation for human rights (IHF) sent a confirmation on August 28 that only Aganic's HHO was recognised as a member of the IHF. However, Trusic and Kovacevic's HHO hold the centre office in Vienna had not yet been informed in detail with the circumstances of registration of the HHO, so they sent the IHF its Statute expecting to become full members of the IHF. Trusic and Kovacevic said they had protected the HHO's sign at the Croatian Institute for Intellectual Property and had requested of the Zagreb State Attorney's Office several days ago to cease the functioning of the HHO whose leader is Izet Aganovic. The leadership of Izet Aganovic's HHO has no right to speak about their fight for human rights because of what some of them had done in the past system. Besides, they had "ethnically cleansed" their HHO from Croats a year ago, Kovacevic said. The founders of the new HHO accused the media for tub-thumping them and announced private law suits against some of them. (hina) lml jn