INTERIOR MINISTRY DENIES MUSLIM DEPORTATION CLAIMS

( Editorial: --> 8000 ) ZAGREB, 12 Dec (Hina) - The cultural society of Croatian Bosniaks (Muslims), 'Preporod', on Friday published a letter they had sent to the Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, expressing their concern over the news on 'expulsion and deportation' of Muslim workers from towns in Primorsko-Goranska and Istria counties. The letter, sent to Hina, said that the expelled were "people who lived in those towns for 10, 15, 20 or more years, mainly miners, who, after so many years, were hit by two-fold misfortune - they lost their jobs (the mines were closed) and they lost the opportunity to acquire Croatian documents, and many of them participated in the Homeland war" Many of the expelled have already married in Croatia, and now there are cases when "the wife gets citizenship and the husband is denied it, or parents are threatened with deportation and children have the right to citizenship by birth". Answering Hina's questions concerning claims from the letter, Interior Ministry spokesman Zlatko Kuretic said that requests by the Bosniak "foreigners asking for permanent residence permits and entry visas to the effect of regulating extended residence have been approved in all cases where legal requirements were met." Representatives of the Bosniak society should send Interior Ministry concrete data on persons whose requests have not been dealt with in line with the law. "As regards statements in the letter about families being broken up and about deportations, not only are those statements false - but from the moment he took up his responsible and difficult post Interior Minister Ivan Penic has given a clear instruction to all services of the Ministry in charge of requests concerning various status questions, that their task, as well as of the whole Ministry, is to pay special attention to protecting and re-uniting families," Kuretic told Hina. (hina) jn rm 122136 MET dec 97