ZAGREB, April 23, 2019 - The Movement for a Modern Croatia on Tuesday sent a request to the State Election Commission (DIP) to ban an anti-abortion march on 25 May, the day before the EP election, when electioneering is prohibited throughout Croatia.

The movement, which is also running in the elections to be held on 26 May in Croatia, believes that the planned pro-life march, which is organised by the civil society group "Walk for Life", will serve to promote some of the candidates for the EP elections on the day when electioneering is banned.

The ban on electioneering goes into force at midnight on Friday (before an election Sunday) and lasts until the closure of polling stations at 1900 hrs Sunday. According to DIP's explanation, the ban refers to electioneering communication disseminated through a means such as a broadcasting station, radio station, cable television system or satellite system, newspaper, magazine, periodical, billboard advertisement, or mail as well as the Internet and social networks.

The movement asks DIP to make sure that conditions are equal for all candidates in election races.

The civil society group "Walk for Life" has recently announced that it will stage marches in Osijek and Rijeka on 18 May and in Zagreb, Split and Zadar on 25 May, when electioneering is banned.

The Movement for a Modern Croatia says in its request that a peaceful walk for life can be held any week after the elections for the EP rather than on the day before the elections.

Some of the conservative candidates for the EP elections are believed to be close to organisers of the pro-life marches, and therefore the Walk for Life events are perceived as an opportunity for their election campaign.

More news about the abortion issue in Croatia can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, April 3, 2019 - Refugee protection nongovernmental organisations on Wednesday published their fifth report on violent and illegal push-backs of refugees from Croatia and systematic human rights violations on the EU's borders, demanding that the Croatian Ministry of the Interior and the Police Directorate stop interpreting Croatian and EU laws in a selective and ill-intentioned way.

Collective, unlawful and violent police push-backs of refugees on Croatian borders have continued despite consistent warnings by numerous international and domestic organisations, representatives of the Centre for Peace Studies, Are You Syrious?, the Welcome Initiative and the Italian Consortium of Solidarity (ICS) told a news conference outside the Ministry of the Interior in Zagreb.

Tea Vidović of the Centre for Peace Studies and the Welcome Initiative said that collective refugee expulsions definitely happened and that no one questioned that any more.

"All testimonies indicate that systematic and organised collective push-backs of refugees from EU territory are happening," said Vidović.

Apart from such testimonies, the NGOs' report also includes a legal analysis as to how Croatian and EU laws should be interpreted and why actions by the Ministry of the Interior are unlawful.

Antonija Potočki of the Are You Syrious NGO said that they were speaking in the name of some 10,000 women, children and men who were expelled from Croatia in 2018 alone.

Many of them were given a "Croatian welcome", which, according to numerous testimonies, included brutal beatings with truncheons, punching and kicking, stripping refugees naked, taking their water and food supplies, threatening them with weapons, shooting, theft and destruction of refugees' personal items, and illegal and violent push-backs of families, minors, and sick and elderly people, Potočki said.

Matej Iscra of the ICS said that his organisation had collected the testimonies of several asylum-seekers on a number of cases of illegal expulsion by Italian police in the period from June to October 2018.

All the cases were characterised by strong arbitrariness on the part of Italian police and the fact that they were chain expulsions, with Italian police handing over migrants to Slovenian police, who handed them over to Croatian police, who returned them to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iscra said.

The migrants testified about verbal and physical abuse by Croatian police during the process of expulsion. Italian police said that public security officials in Trieste described those procedures as correct and as readmission, Iscra said.

The refugee protection NGOs published their first report on unlawful refugee expulsions in 2016.

More news about migrant crisis can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, March 26, 2019 - The NGO Human Rights House Zagreb said on Tuesday that in 2018 Croatia experienced a strong polarisation between conservative and liberal values which was further intensified by two referendum initiatives, the situation in the media sector, a deterioration at the public broadcaster HRT, and inadequate regulation of sexual and reproductive rights.

The organisation held a press conference to present its report on human rights in Croatia in 2018, which is based on interviews with over 50 civil society associations and academics.

The coordinator of the Human Rights House, Ivan Novosel, recalled that last year two referendum initiatives – one calling for the abrogation of the Istanbul Convention and the other for changing the election system – had made use of deficiencies of the Referendum Act and attempted to reduce vested human rights.

Although a bill on the protection of whistle-blowers was passed in 2018, human rights were not high on the government's agenda, according to the report.

Croatia still does not have fundamental public policies for the protection and promotion of human rights such as a national plan for the protection and promotion of human rights or a national plan for gender equality.

Apart from the fact that Croatia still does not have a media strategy, the NGO also criticised the authorities for interfering in the work of media outlets. To make things worse, at least 1,163 civil lawsuits are currently being conducted against media outlets and their journalists for defamation, which further affects media freedoms, the report said.

The NGO warned of hate speech in public discourse, notably anti-Serb, anti-Romany and anti-LGBT statements.

Sanja Cesar of the Centre for Education, Counselling and Research spoke of women's reproductive rights, saying that the growing number of doctors exercising the right to conscientious objection, the inadequate regulation of medical procedures and the high costs of those services were limiting women's access to abortion.

In five of 27 state-owned general hospitals and clinical centres, all gynaecologists refuse to perform a pregnancy termination on request, invoking the right to conscientious objection. In the remaining institutions 60 percent of doctors exercise the right to conscientious objection, Cesar said.

Because of the lack of information about the possibility of using anaesthesia, as many as 32 percent of women underwent gynaecological procedures without anaesthesia, such as curettage, assisted reproduction procedures or a biopsy of reproductive tissue.

Prosecution of cases of violence against women has improved.

Although a number of measures were adopted last year to improve the economic situation of citizens, there are still great inequalities between urban and rural areas, where higher rates of unemployment and poverty are recorded. About 20 percent of citizens live at risk of poverty.

Access to social services, the labour market, healthcare and education is difficult for people with disabilities, women, children and young people.

Human rights ombudswoman Lora Vidović said that cooperation between the civil sector and government was the only way for society to move forward and tackle all the challenges.

She said that most of the complaints her office received last year related to discrimination in general, the judiciary, work relations and healthcare, with complaints concerning the rights of war veterans increasing the most.

More news about human rights in Croatia can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, March 22, 2019 - After the Croatian parliament spent the whole night on Thursday debating the MOST party's amendments to the bill on the financing of political activities, election campaigning and referendums, activists of the GONG non-governmental organisation on Friday called on lawmakers not to adopt the bill, saying that it was harmful.

GONG member Goran Čular told reporters outside the parliament that the bill was harmful in terms of its content and that it was also harmful for political culture in Croatia.

He underlined that so far political parties in Croatia had complied with the good practice set by the Venice Commission not to change election legislation just before elections.

"In Europe such things are done relatively rarely. The bill on the financing of political activities contains some provisions whose impact on the election process is greater than the impact of the election law itself," said Čular.

Apart from the fact that it is harmful for political culture, the bill has a harmful content because it takes us back to the time of former Prime Minuster Ivo Sanader, said Čular. "It is being adopted just before European elections so some very important provisions will already be in force in those elections. I'm talking primarily about the provision that increases the maximum funding of election campaigning from 1.5 million kuna to 4 million per slate," said Čular.

He recalled that in 2011 the amount legal and physical persons could donate to political parties was limited to 30,000 kuna for physical persons and 200,000 kuna for legal persons.

The current bill distinguishes between the financing of regular activities from the financing of party campaigns and thus, depending on the number of elections in a year, increases donations to political parties several times.

"In 2019, when elections for the European Parliament and presidential elections will be held, you will be able to make a donation of 30,000 kuna or of 200,000 kuna, if you are a company, for no more than three times," said Čular.

GONG executive director Jelena Berković said that it was contentious that the bill, which also concerns the financing of referendums and referendum initiatives by civil society groups, was being adopted without a new law on referendums having been adopted.

She also noted that the current bill did not contain a provision on the need to specify payments made by political parties to their candidates for electioneering purposes.

Berković claimed that that provision did exist in the version of the bill that was put to public consultation but that in the first reading it was deleted without any explanation.

Representatives of the Amsterdam Coalition said on Friday that the ruling HDZ party and its coalition partners wanted to buy European elections with the proposed bill on the financing of political activities which was currently being discussed by the parliament, and that therefore they demanded that the law should go into force on June 1 and not on the day before the day when elections for the European Parliament would be called.

Anka Mrak Taritaš, leader of the GLAS party, which is part of the Amsterdam Coalition, told a news conference in the parliament that the bill on the financing of political activities contained numerous improvements in relation to the existing law but also entirely unacceptable elements.

"The crucial thing is the day of the entry into force of the law, which bears witness to the thuggery of the HDZ, the HNS and Milan Bandić's parliamentary group because today is March 22 and the president of the republic can call elections for the European Parliament on March 25 at the latest. That means that the law will go into force on the day before the day when the elections are called," said Mrak Taritaš.

Election rules are not changed in an election year, what the HDZ, the HNS and Bandić are doing is unfair to the political system and political parties and also bears witness to their disrespect of the European Parliament, she said.

The Amsterdam Coalition has only one amendment to the bill on the financing of political activities - that it should go into force on June 1. By adopting that amendment, the ruling majority will show that there is a minimum of democracy in Croatia, the GLAS leader said.

Krešo Beljak, leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), also a member of the Amsterdam Coalition, said that election campaigns in 2019 were not like campaigns of 15 years ago because a larger number of supporters could be reached today for much less money, primarily through campaigning on social networks.

"It is absolutely unnecessary for any party, including even the HDZ and Bandić, to spend that much money on an election campaign," said Beljak.

More news on the elections in Croatia can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, March 21, 2019 - The In the Name of the Family civil society group on Thursday described as unacceptable plans by the ruling majority to push through a law on the financing of political activities, election campaigns and referendums, saying that by trying to have the law adopted before the elections for the European Parliament, the ruling HDZ party was trying to win more money for the financing of its election campaign.

The bill, which is being discussed by the parliament, raises the maximum allowed amount for electioneering purposes from kuna 1.5 million to 4 million per slate, which means that the HDZ and its coalition partners would have three times more money at their disposal, the group said.

It particularly objected to the bill being discussed under fast-track procedure, without a third reading, and to plans for the law to go into force eight days after its publication in the Official Journal, with retroactive application of some of its regulations.

This, the group says, is contrary to recommendations by the Venice Commission that election legislation, including rules on campaign financing, should not be changed one year before elections.

By adopting such a law, the prime minister would be abusing the parliamentary majority for unfair political competition and so that "the HDZ could have as much influence on voters as possible," the group said.

It recalled that the bill "is almost a complete copy of the Social Democratic Party-sponsored bill from 2015 against which the HDZ voted at the time, and is now imposing it, following the scam with the referendum on the election system."

In the Name of the Family also warned that the bill equated ad hoc civic initiatives with political parties which, it says, receive millions of kuna from the state budget and have employees and the necessary infrastructure, and planned to lay the same administrative burden on them as for political parties.

In the Name of the Family believes that the purpose of the bill is also to make the financing of referendums more complicated for citizens.

Earlier in the day, the opposition MOST party, dissatisfied with the bill on the financing of political activities, election campaigns and referendums, submitted more than 900 amendments to the bill and asked for a third reading.

More news about elections in Croatia can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, March 20, 2019 - On the occasion of International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, marked on March 21, several women’s NGOs, including the ROSA Centre of Women War Victims, the Belgrade-based Women in Black NGO, the Women's Network Croatia and the Rog Social Centre from Slovenia, have called on EU member states to open their borders and take in refugees/migrants who are fleeing war and seeking to save themselves and their families.

"We are asking Croatia to treat refugees/migrants humanly, to make their stay in the country easier, to grant international protection based on laws and not political stances, to apply regulations on special guarantees to the most vulnerable groups, to stop police pressure and torture of refugees/migrants and those who are helping them, to enable everyone who wishes free passage to pass freely and anyone wishing to stay, to do so," the NGOs said in a press release.

The women's groups recalled that they too were refugees and could again become that if the erosion of humanity and tolerance of violence against refugees/migrants continues.

The increased wave of refugees/migrants in Europe, which has been going on for four years, has shown that many countries and individuals have failed the test of humanity and solidarity.

"Wire fences, walls and hate speech and violence against refugees have become Europe's symbols. Growing hate, racism and far-right movements are the current state of affairs," the NGOs warned.

"We most sharply condemn the behaviour toward refugees/migrants at the borders across the EU, where they are exposed to terror, where their right to freedom is violated and they are not offered protection that all countries are obliged to provide according to international agreements and domestic laws.

"We expect EU countries to open their borders and accept refugees/migrants, who are running away from war and seeking salvation for themselves and their families and a peaceful and safe life worthy of man," the press release said.

More news about the migrant crisis can be found in the Politics section.

The wasteful spending of public money in Croatia is so widespread that it is difficult to select the worst case: from doubled traffic bollards to billions spent on companies losing money, which examples are your favourites? The Lipa taxpayer association will present the results of its latest project on Tuesday – The Black Book of Public Money Expenditure for 2018 – and organise a round table discussion with prominent economists, reports Poslovni.hr on March 11, 2019.

In the last year, Lipa has collected some of the most interesting cases of wasteful spending of public money in Croatia, such as the so-called free public transportation in Zagreb during the Advent period and endless amounts of public subsidies given to failing companies.

“The cases of non-transparent and inefficient spending of taxpayers' money are commonplace in Croatia. The way the authorities, experts and voters approach this subject will represent the basis which will determine our future. If the irresponsible spending of taxpayers' money continues at this level of intensity, it's clear that Croatia has a negligible chance of joining the community of developed and prosperous European Union countries,” the Lipa taxpayer association said in its announcement.

Based on the analysis of the selected cases, Lipa has drafted several recommendations for better public money management, which will also be presented at the event.

The presentation of the Black Book for 2018 will be held on March 12, 2019, at the Croatian Journalism House in Zagreb. The Black Book will be presented by the president of the Lipa taxpayers association Davor Huić and the NGO’s executive director Zoran Low. The roundtable will be attended by Zoran Löw, Davor Huić, economist Velimir Šonje and economist Vuk Vuković.

On its website, Lipa says it is funded exclusively by memberships and donations. It has popularised many topics such as public debt, the level of the tax burden and the way politicians spend taxpayers’ hard-earned money with their activities. By initiating a petition against the property tax, which was signed by 150,000 people, Lipa has blocked the implementation of the already adopted Local Tax Act, in its real estate taxes part. It has five goals: lower taxes, smaller government, transparency, efficiency, and reduction of public debt.

More news about public spending can be found in the Business section.

Translated from Poslovni.hr.

ZAGREB, February 25, 2019 - After the Roda nongovernmental organisation in November 2018 reported violations of women's reproductive rights to UN human rights bodies, based on testimonies collected in a campaign focusing on women's negative hospital treatment experiences, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights asked Croatia to urgently take action to prevent violation of women's sexual and reproductive rights.

"We are appalled by the testimonies given by women, following the launch of the campaign #BreakTheSilence in October 2018, which showed a pattern of abuse and violence against women undertaking medical procedures related to their reproductive health,” reads a statement by a group of experts released on the website of the UN Commissioner for Human Rights.

Noting that the violence ranged from surgical treatments carried out without anaesthesia to humiliation, verbal abuse and the refusal to give painkilling medication, the experts say that Croatia should adopt measures to prevent violence and insist on the accountability of those who commit it.

"We are deeply concerned about women being subjected to painful treatments without anaesthesia, including surgical miscarriage procedures, uterine scrapes, removal of placenta, stitching after birth, episiotomies being conducted against their will and disrespectful treatment of women by health personnel," the experts stress.

They note that in spite of the testimonies, some politicians and heads of health institutions have denied the allegations, questioning the credibility of the women’s stories and their perception of pain. At times, even women’s intelligence was questioned.

“A woman who is receiving reproductive health care, including giving birth, accessing medically assisted reproduction services and undergoing surgical miscarriage procedures, must have her rights respected.

“Health personnel should apply the highest standards of professionalism and ethical codes in delivering reproductive health care, and they must respect the dignity, privacy, autonomy, integrity and security of women,” the experts emphasize.

“We encourage the Government of Croatia to conduct an independent investigation into those allegations, to publish its results and to elaborate a national action plan for women’s health,” the experts conclude.

During the campaign BreakTheSilence, in only two and a half days, activists collected more than 400 testimonies of women who have experienced some kind of violence and abuse in Croatian hospitals during gynaecological procedures.

More news about women’s issues can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, February 11, 2019 - By refusing a review of the treaties signed with the Holy See, the Croatian government has missed the opportunity to raise again the issue of the financing of the Catholic Church, the nongovernmental organisation GONG said on Monday, asking that the Church's financial reports be made available to the public, an obligation honoured by other non-profit organisations.

"There are no precise data on the financing of the Church with money from the state budget. According to figures provided by the government, the Church receives around 600 million kuna annually from the state budget while data at local level are not available. When money the Church receives from believers and allocations from abroad are added to this, the total amount is much higher, but it is not specified anywhere," GONG said in a statement.

The Finance Ministry keeps a register of annual financial reports of non-profit organisations such as GONG. On the other hand, religious communities do not have to make annual financial plans or keep business books and store them in line with regulations defined by law, nor are they subject to audits, the NGO says.

"All of that are obligations of non-profit organisations that should also apply to the Catholic Church and all other religious communities in Croatia," GONG said.

It noted that the Bishop of Dubrovnik, Mate Uzinić, who publishes financial reports for his diocese, bears proof that there are Church members who support transparency.

More news on the Catholic Church in Croatia can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, January 5, 2019 – The Truth about the Istanbul Convention civil society organisation on Friday submitted an appeal to the Constitutional Court, proposing the revocation of the entire procedure of inspecting signatures collected for a referendum initiative to abrogate the Istanbul Convention's ratification in parliament and that a new signatures inspection be carried out by the State Election Commission in the presence of the NGO's observers.

A representative of the NGO, Kristina Pavlović, told a news conference, held outside the Constitutional Court on Friday, that the Public Administration Ministry and the APIS agency applied "bureaucratic formalism" while inspecting the signatures collected for the purpose of a referendum to declare invalid as many signatures as possible.

The NGO has called on the parliament to entrust the State Electoral Commission to conduct an independent check of the signatures and allow its observers to be present during the check.

According to the ministry's data, the Truth about the Istanbul Convention civil initiative submitted 390,916 signatures for its referendum petition, of which 345,942 were valid and 44,974 invalid. A total of 374,740 signatures are required to call a referendum.

Pavlović said more than 33,000 signatures have been declared invalid due to illegible handwriting.

More news on the referendum initiatives can be found in our Politics section.