Speaking at a panel discussion organised by the nongovernmental organisation "Centre for Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights" in the eastern city of Osijek on Wednesday, Puhovski ascribed the deterioration in the human rights situation to a sudden rise in the number of complaints about police conduct, in the number of incidents aimed against the largest ethnic minority, i.e. Serbs, and the government's indecisive conduct regarding the rights of the most vulnerable categories of the society.
Asked to comment on a recent police raid of the offices of a war veterans' organisation in Zagreb, Puhovski said that the behaviour of policemen in the operation reflected a long-standing problem of lack of experience in the treatment of disabled persons. In this context, Puhovski said that it was irrelevant how one had become a disabled person.
According to Puhovski, in Croatia it is still common to seek privileges instead of rights, which he said was a problem.
He also commented on the insistence of the UN war crimes tribunal to prevent the public presentation of a testimony of a protected witness. "Formally, this is probably correct, but in terms of content, it is pointless," Puhovski said explaining that the idea of a head of state being a protected witness was illogical.
On Monday evening, the police raided the offices of a war veterans organisation in Zagreb to prevent the presentation of a protected testimony which was to take place in the said offices.
The testimony was given by the current Croatian President Stjepan Mesic before the Hague tribunal in the trial of Bosnian Croat Tihomir Blaskic. Mesic was an opposition politician at the time.