ZAGREB, 18 Dec, 2021 - The Croat minority in Serbia faces many challenges but it has been making significant achievements and perseveres in protecting its unity, Croat National Council (HNV) head Jasna Vojnić said in Subotica, in the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, on Friday. 

The HNV on Friday marked the day of the establishment of the first HNV, a holiday of the Croat minority in Serbia.

"The house where Count (Josip) Jelačić was born has been bought and is being renovated, offices have been secured to house the association of Croats in Belgrade, construction work on Croatian House has begun, the first crèche has been opened..." Vojnić said, speaking of the results of the current HNV.

Another, invisible achievement is the preserved unity among Croats in Serbia and their representatives becoming credible partners to the state institutions in Croatia, she added.

The event in Subotica was also attended by the deputy head of the Serb National Council (SNV), Croatian member of parliament Dragana Jeckov, who said that the Croat and Serb minorities shared many problems.

"When Croats in Serbia are attacked, Serbs in Croatia feel it very much and, I am sure, vice versa," she said.

"To all those who are not willing to give a helping hand to promote relations - stop and let us minorities live normally," she said.

The envoy of the Croatian prime minister, Milan Bošnjak, commended the ethnic Croat community's achievements and positive steps made by the Serbian authorities, but also warned of situations that make life for the Croat minority more difficult and harm bilateral relations.

In that context he mentioned the decision by the Subotica town government to declare the Bunjevci Ikavian dialect "an official non-Croatian language" and the fact that the issue of representation of Croats in the Serbian parliament had not been resolved yet.

"We look forward to the moment when a Croat will be elected to the Serbian parliament in a separate constituency," Bošnjak said.

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ZAGREB, 17 Oct, 2021 - Serbian Culture and Information Minister Maja Gojković and Croatian National Council (HNV) leader Jasna Vojnić on Friday launched work on the interior renovation of the birth house of Count Josip Jelačić, the Ban (governor) of Croatia (1801-1859) in Petrovaradin.

The renovation work, worth €100,000, will be financed by the Serbian government with the support of the government of the northern province of Vojvodina and its capital city Novi Sad, of which Petrovaradin is now part.

After the historical building is fully renovated, it will serve as a memorial to the best known governor of Croatia, the seat of several organisations and a meeting point for local ethnic Croats.

The ceremony of launching renovation work was held on one of the four holidays of the ethnic Croat community - the day of Count Jelačić's birth.

HNV head Vojnić said that the event should serve as an example of how all other outstanding issues related to the Croat community in Serbia should be dealt with, citing in that context guaranteed seats for the Croat community in the Serbian parliament, proportional employment in state institutions, sufficient funding for the work of local councils, a positive image in the media and the protection of cultural goods of the Croat community.

Gojković said the renovation of Count Jelačić's birth house was a true symbol of "our wish to contribute to the preservation of the tradition, customs and culture of the Croat ethnic minority in our country."

"By doing so we are demonstrating our commitment to building better relations and understanding between the Serbian and Croat peoples," she said, among other things.

The event was also attended by an envoy of Croatia's Central State Office for Croats Abroad, Dario Magdić.

"I hope and believe that today's event is a continuation of positive developments that started a year ago, when this building was purchased by Serbia and handed over to the HNV... It shows that we should work and build together, to the benefit of our autochthonous communities and societies," he said.

Those attending the ceremony were also greeted by Vojvodina Prime Minister Igor Mirović.

The birth house of Count Jelačić is located in the centre of Petrovaradin.

Built in 1745, the house was renovated in 2001 on the occasion of the 200th birth anniversary of Count Jelačić.

The Serbian government purchased the part of the building that was handed over to the Croat community for €600,000.

Petrovaradin is an ancient garrison town and was an important point of military resistance to Ottoman forces during the time of the Habsburg Empire in the 17th century, when it was settled by Croats.

In the early 19th century, Croats accounted for more than 90% of the town's population, but today they account for only 10%.

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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, 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.