The Croatian embassy in Belgrade on Monday received Serbia’s protest note. The note was given to the charge d’affairs over the events that unfolded during Saturday’s rally in Zagreb of the Autochthonous Croatian Rights Party (A-HSP).
A group of members of this extreme right-wing party protested against the possibility that a controversial plaque, placed near the site of the former Jasenovac death camp, might be removed.
The plaque contains the words, “Za dom spremni (For home willing)” – a greeting used by the Ustasha regime of the Nazi-allied Independent State of Croatia (NDH), which during the Second World War ran Jasenovac, a place of mass murder of Serbs, Jews, and the Roma people.
During the protest the A-HSP members openly threatened Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, expressed their pro-Ustasha and anti-Serb positions, and set on fire a copy of the weekly Novosti, published by the Serb National Council in Croatia.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia considers that such an incident, carried out by a neo-fascist political group from Croatia, led by its president, in the presence of members of the Croatian MUP (Interior Ministry), is an example of inciting ethnic hatred and intimidation of members of the Serb national minority in the Republic of Croatia, an attempt to revise history, and glorify the Ustasha movement and its symbols,” a statement said.
The Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs expects that perpetrators of these criminal offenses are charged and punished by law.
“The MFA expect from the competent institutions of Croatia, in the spirit of preserving and further developing bilateral relations, to in future prevent such gatherings that have a certain ending – and that is to insult members of the Serb national community in Croatia, and Serbs as a whole,” the protest note said.
(INSerbia, 04.09.2017)
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