Milanovic: Protest Is Democracy, Going To Care Homes Is Idiocy
ZAGREB, Sept 6, 2020 - President Zoran Milanovic on Saturday commented on a protest in Zagreb against COVID restrictions, saying that protest is a democracy but that the fact that the protesters stood outside nursing homes was idiocy and disastrous.
He was responding to questions from the press on Rab island if the rally in Zagreb was a festival of democracy, as the participants claimed, and if he considered any restrictions contentious.
"From day one we have been saying that the elderly and the sick are the ones we must care for, not teenagers, my generation. To go outside retirement homes and say that corona is a child's play, which I saw they did, is a disaster... If they are protesting against masks, that's okay."
Speaking of restrictions, he said, "One should be more disciplined than usual, that's the only measure."
Asked what he would tell people who claimed that coronavirus did not exist, Milanovic said ironically that they were "very fine people."
Asked what would happen if the virus entered kindergartens and schools, he said children and youth were the least at risk. "It's time they finally go to school because this has been going on too long."
Milanovic and Slovenian President Borut Pahor were on Rab for the 77th commemoration of the liberation of inmates from the Kampor fascist concentration camp.
"The banality of evil," he said of the WWII camp. "This wasn't a typical extermination camp. This was a camp where you bring Slovenians and Croats because they crossed you for some reason, not just because they are Slovenians and Croats, and leave them to die in a year, you don't feed them. That's the banality of evil. Somebody watched that, those guards, for a year."
Asked if he and Pahor discussed bilateral topics, Milanovic said, "We talk all the time... about the situation in the region, everything that goes on around us. About the right-wing in Europe. I don't mean traditional Christian values but... I don't like the words 'anti-European policy' because that means nothing, but there is a number of leaders and politicians in Europe who see the enemy in everything."
Asked if he and Pahor talked about the reopening of borders given that Slovenia put Croatia on the red list of COVID countries, Milanovic said there was a reason why Slovenia did that.
"The number of daily cases of infections increased because almost a million foreigners arrived in Croatia in July and August so that we could make money. That's not surprising. That's the price we consciously paid both as a state and as a society, and we should finally accept that... Let's not be surprised that almost a million foreigners passed through Croatia, leaving their money here, socializing, forming crowds, and that some got infected. But that's the price of the risk we were all willing to take. Slovenia's reaction was expected, that will change."
Asked if he would ask Pahor that Slovenia apply the regional COVID model towards Croatia, like Germany, Milanovic said, "He doesn't decide on that, just as I don't in Croatia."
He said they often spoke on the phone. "The topics are political, concerning the region, the Balkans, the eastern Balkans."
Asked if he heard the appeals from the ruling HDZ, the minister of defense, the parliament speaker, and the prime minister that he should be more rational with military resources, Milanovic said he did not. "Since I'm the commander in chief, I'll decide what's more rational, if they really said that. We are being very rational."
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Anti-COVID Freedom Festival Begins In Zagreb
ZAGREB, Sept 5, 2020 - Hundreds of people rallied in Zagreb's main square at 5 p.m. on Saturday for the anti-COVID Freedom Festival protest in response to coronavirus prevention measures.
They carried banners which read "Take off the mask, turn off the TV, live life to the fullest", "COVID is a lie, we're not all covidiots", "Parents and children are inseparable", "Better the grave than to be a slave", "Free life is our power", "Normally, period" and "We believe in the strength we have".
The festival was organized by the Rights and Freedoms initiative. Participants arrived by bus from Dubrovnik, Split, Sibenik, Zadar, Rijeka, and Istria.
Since COVID-19 appeared, unprecedented measures which restrict fundamental rights and freedoms have been imposed, and our goal is to preserve the achievements of a democratic society in which one cannot tolerate decision making based on panic and propaganda or on copying instead of examining, the organizer said.
They insist on the preservation of human rights, freedoms, knowledge, solidarity, and mutual respect, and wish to say that health is psychical, physical, emotional, and mental, not just the corona level.
In the morning, participants organized events accompanied by music outside nursing homes, where they asked residents to open their windows and balconies to hear that they are not forgotten and to cheer them up with music and messages of encouragement.
Police say the rally has been announced
Zagreb police told Hina they were notified that a public rally called the Freedom Festival would be held and that they would see to it that it proceeded safely.
Assistant Interior Minister Damir Trut said on Friday the protest's organizers committed to adhering to all epidemiological measures stipulated by the Croatian Institute of Public Health.
The medical association says the festival is deception and demagoguery
The Croatian Medical Law Association (HUZMP) said on Friday it was appalled by the announcement of the Freedom Festival because, according to a press release, it was a protest against individual and societal health organized under the slogan of freedom and that this meant it was about deception and demagoguery.
"At a time when the world is facing the highest ever numbers of coronavirus cases and dead when hospitals in Croatia are quickly filling up with everyday hospitalizations of new patients, the HUZMP is appalled by the announcement of a so-called freedom festival," the press release said.
What freedom of speech are we talking about and who will cultivate it if there is no general safety and health, and who will enjoy freedoms if the processes and institutes of medical science, prevention, and treatment are being belittled, the HUZMP asked.
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