ZAGREB, 7 Aug, 2021 - Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković said on Saturday the rhetoric used by the president of Serbia and Serbian officials was the reason for a recent physical and verbal attack on Croats in Subotica.

Asked if the attack could be the result of the two countries' policies, Jandroković said the situation in the two countries could not be compared.

"The celebration of Operation Storm in Croatia is dignified. We celebrate our victory in the Homeland War without disparaging anyone. We have a good cooperation with representatives of all ethnic minorities, including the Serbs, and the rhetoric used by Serbia's president and senior officials is probably to blame for some people feeling the urge to physically or verbally threaten members of the Croat people," Jandroković told the N1 broadcaster when asked about an attack on five Croatian nationals in Subotica which local police said was due to a row over a parking space.

The Croat National Council said on Friday that five Croatian nationals were physically and verbally assaulted and their relative was lightly injured when an unidentified man attacked them in Subotica but local police denied it.

Jandroković also said that Serbia should face the truth and accept responsibility for the events of the 1990s.

"That is a precondition for better cooperation. We must all be forward-looking, there is no use in turning to the past," he said.

Speaking of wildfires that have been raging for days in Greece and Turkey, Jandroković called for developing international solidarity.

"We received help from them when the region of Banija was hit by (last year's) earthquake," he said, adding that Croatia was currently able to provide assistance to Greece and Turkey.

Jandroković once again called for compliance with epidemiological restrictions, expressing hope the tourist season would last not only until the end of August but the end of September.

The parliament speaker was today in Imotski, where he attended a ceremony marking 120 years of fire-fighting in the Imotska Krajina region and the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Imotski Voluntary Fire Department.

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ZAGREB, 7 Aug, 2021 - A democratic and safe country is recognised by the response to ethnic incidents, the head of the Croat National Council (HNV) in Serbia, Jasna Vojnić, said on Saturday in a comment on an assault on Croatian nationals in Subotica.

The assault occurred early on 2 August, with a man lunging at passengers, including three minors, in a car with Zagreb licence plates, saying he would "slaughter all Ustasha", and attacking a local Croat from Subotica, according to eye-witnesses.

Police arrived at the scene soon and arrested the attacker.

Vojnić said ethnic incidents happened in the best organised countries but that "a developed, democratic and safe country is recognised not by the number of such incidents but by the way it responds to them."

She said that what was problematic in Serbia was the lack of condemnation of ethnically motivated incidents against ethnic Croats by government officials and media turning the victims into the culprits.

The leader of the Democratic Alliance of Vojvodina Croats, Tomislav Žigmanov, said one was again witnessing the competent authorities downplaying incidents, a reference to the Serbian Ministry of the Interior describing the incident as a row over a parking space.

This is yet another convincing reason why Croats in Serbia do not trust institutions that deal with and prosecute incidents, said Žigmanov.

Police dismiss allegations man was injured

Subotica police said that the allegation about the man, identified as Z. B., having been attacked, was not true and that the Croatian nationals in question did not report any physical attack, the subotica.com portal reported.

Soon after the incident was reported, police arrived at the scene and interviewed Z.B., who said that a man had shouted insults at him and grabbed him by the throat due to a misunderstanding over a parking space, but made no mention that his relatives from Croatia were attacked or injured, police said.

Police interviewed six people, members of Z.B.'s family, who "at no moment said that the man had physically attacked them."

Police said they identified and located the assailant, a 63-year-old man, in half an hour. He was interviewed and the case was forwarded to the local prosecutorial authorities.

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ZAGREB, 7 Aug, 2021 - Five Croatian citizens have been physically and verbally attacked and a cousin of theirs lightly injured by an unknown man in Subotica, northern Serbia, the Croatian National Council (HNV) said on Friday, but local police denied it.

The incident occurred on 2 August when the man physically attacked the passengers in a car with Zagreb licence plates, saying he would "slaughter all Ustasha" and swearing at them, said Darko Baštovanović, an official of the HNV, the Croatian minority's umbrella organisation in Serbia.

Asked by the passengers' cousin, Z. B., why he was doing that, the man grabbed him by the throat and threw him to the ground, lightly injuring him. Z. B. then called the police, which arrived on the scene but did not give him a report on the attack, Baštovanović said.

Subotica police, however, said in a statement the claims that Z. B. was injured were incorrect and that the Croatians did not report being physically attacked, the suboica.com website said.

Police said Z. B. told them "that a man insulted and grabbed him by the throat over a parking disagreement, but did not mention that his cousins from Croatia had been injured or physically assaulted."

Officers spoke to six of Z. B.'s family members who "did not complain about being physically attacked by that man."

Police said they identified the perpetrator, a 63-year-old man of Subotica, in half an hour, interviewing him and sending the case to the prosecutors.

According to suboica.com, the police called "on all local subjects" to contact them "for correct and verified information, instead of spreading incorrect and unverified information in public, because in that way they are harming the good inter-ethnic relations that are traditionally nurtured in Subotica."

The HNV said it stuck by its claims despite the police statement, condemning "the brutal attack on ethnic grounds" and saying "it is yet another in a series of attacks against the Croatian community in Serbia, which we believe have also been caused by the continuous negative coverage on Croats in Serbian media."

The HNV said the latest case showed in what conditions the Croatian community lived and to what it was exposed, adding that it was especially worried that the attack occurred in Subotica, a multiethnic city and the cultural centre of the Croatian people and Croatian institutions in Serbia.

Baštovanović said Serbian authorities were obliged to respond appropriately because this time Croatian citizens were attacked also, adding that taking appropriate action would prevent inter-ethnic incidents and the further deterioration of Croatian-Serbian relations.

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ZAGREB, 6 March, 2021 - The Croatian National Council (HNV) leader Jasna Vojnić has sent a proposal to Serbia's President Aleksandar Vučić that the language of the ethnic Croatian minority should be recognised as an official language in the whole territory of the northern province of Vojvodina.

The HNV web portal reported on Friday evening about this initiative launched by the leadership of ethnic Croats in Serbia in response to the plans of the local authorities in the northern Vojvodina city of Subotica to approve the official use of the Bunjevački vernacular spoken by members of a local community who identify themselves as non-Croat Bunjevci.

Under the current law, local government units must grant the official use of an ethnic minority's language and script if that minority accounts for at least 15% of the local population. According to the 2011 census, 13,553 citizens, or 9.57% of Subotica residents, identify themselves as Bunjevci.

Despite the fact that the size of the Bunjevci community did not reach the 15% share in the population requirement and despite the fact that this vernacular does not have a status of a language according to linguistic standards, Subotica Mayor Stevan Bakić of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić's Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) moved a proposal to amend the city's statute to introduce the Bunjevac dialect and script as an official language.

The HNV leader Vojnić says that being encouraged by this example of such positive discrimination which is applied in the case of the Bunjevci community, the Croatian community "is looking forward to future initiatives of local office-holders to help minorities to exercise similar rights in settlements where ethnic Croats live."

In this context she recalls that in the city of Sombor, Croats make up 8.39% of the local population, and  in the municipalities of Apatin and Bač 10.42% and 8.39% respectively. Therefore, following the precedent of the positive discrimination towards Subotica non-Croat Bunjevci, Vojnić expects Serbia's authorities to apply such positive discrimination rules in the whole of Vojvodina towards ethnic Croats.

Another ethnic Croat leader Tomislav Žigmanov recently warned that the relevant Slavic or comparative linguistics literature does not call the Bunjevac dialect a language.

Croatia's Ambassador to Serbia, Hidajet Biščević, has said in an interview with Hrvatska Riječ that the initiative fort the recognition of the Bunjevci vernacular as an official language is legally unfounded and that it also contains undesirable negative political and social consequences for the interests of the Croat ethnic minority in Serbia.

The diplomat also said that the initiative is contrary to the agreement between Croatia and Serbia on the mutual protection of ethnic minorities.

In the meantime Croatia's Foreign and European Affairs Ministry sent a protest note through its embassy.

"The Bunjevci dialect is not a language. It belongs to the new Stokavian-Ikavian dialect, it is one of the dialects of the Croatian language. The Bunjevci people in Hungary are also a sub-ethnic group who call their language Croatian," Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman said at  news conference last Thursday, explaining the reasons for the protest note.

Around 16,000 Bunjevci who deny their Croatian origins live in the north of the Bačka region. They are represented by the Bunjevci National Council, whose leaders are close to the  Vučić's SNS party.

The remaining majority of the Bunjevci, including the leadership of the Vojvodina Croats, formally identify themselves as Bunjevci Croats.

In the 2011 census, nearly 58,000 people in Serbia identified themselves as Croats.