MASSIVE POUCE HARASSMENT, ARRESTS AND DEFAMATION OFTHE OPPOSITION IN CROATIA
Croatia's President, Franjo Tudjman, is passionately lobbying for his country to become a member of the Council of Europe. Croatia, he argues, has become a constitutional democracy respecting human rights. Yet, as recent information published by the European Clvic Forum shows, Croatlan prosecution authorities under control of Tudjman's party, the HDZ, are clamping down on democratic opponents critical of Croatian nationalism and ethnicism.
Several leading members of "Dalmatian Action" (DA), a ragionaltst and anti-segregationist party in Dalmatia, are detained for allegedly having bombed their own party-office in Splft.
The bomb went off on 28 September, just before a planned meeting of the party's board and caused important material damage. Some days later, the Croatian police arrested Jurica Gilic, a mental patient, who has occasionally worked as an errand-boy for the DA. The man was accused of having planted the bomb, together with an unidentified person.
In early October, seven DA-members, among whom were several members of the party's secretariat, were arrested in the course of a mass'rve police raid. The arrestees were held under total isolation and were denied access to a lawyer for two or three days.
The day following the arrests, Interior Minister Jamjak told the parliament that Gilic had confessed that he had planted the bomb at the instigation of the DA-members now under arrest. The bombing was presented as an act of "internal rivalry" within the DA.
Under interrogation, the police massively threatened the detainees and brutally beat three of them. However, none of the accused confessed.
On 15 October, Jurica Gilic declared in front of the investigating judge that police had forced him to make a false confession and to incriminate innocent persons. The same day, police tried to extort a confession from one of the detained DA-members.
On 24 October, 16 men of a military unit wearing black uniforms raided the home of the president of DA, Mrs. Mire Lorger, in blatant disrespect of the fact that, as an MP, she benefits from parliamentary immunity. For seven hours the soldiers occupied the house and severely intimidated Mrs. Larger and her children before ordering her to leave her home.
Both military and civil authorities in Split and Zagreb refused to intervene against these man'rfestly illegal proceedings.
The accusation against the DA-members are based only on an extorted "confession" of a mentally ill "state witness", who was severely beaten at a police station, only four days before the explosion of the bomb and who later retracted his accusations. Apart this, there is not the slightest evidence for any involvement of the persons now under detention on remand. Nonetheless, at the end of October, none of the DA-members had been set free.
The DA is in fundamental opposition to the governing HDZ. At the last municipal elections in Split, DA gathered almost 15 per cent of the votes. In Split, the DA shares its office with the "Dalmatian Solidarity Committee". a non-party organisation investigation human rights violations and ethnic discrimination.
The events in Split must be seen against the background of a recent massive attack led by President Tudjman in parliament against the regionalist parties DA and IDS (Istria). Tudjman accused the two groups of serving "Great-Serbian expansionism" and fell short only of accusing them of treason.
Earlier, other opposition parties have been subject to incidents similar to the bombing-affair in Split.
Police action based on presidential urgency decrees The arbitrary proceedings of prosecution authorities, including army involvement, appear to be a consequence offour presidential decrees promulgated in December 1991. The decrees concern, respectively, the work of public prosecution and courts, as well as the implementation of criminal law and the execution of sentences "in case of state of war or an imminent threat to the independence and unity of the Republic of Croatia".
Among other things, the decrees provide for:
a shift of jurisdiction to military courts for a number of offences including minor offences such as the theft of car-tires on military vehicles;
the admissibility of slimmed-down courts with only one judge and two lay assessors;
the right for the President of the Republic to dismiss the President of the Supreme Court (a blatant breach of the separation of powers);
provisions allowing prosecution of persons who "could or should have been aware" that their behaviour could lead to "disturbances" (This amounts to making the difficultto determine "subjective mental assessment" a part of the punishable act);
the restrsction of the right to legal defence;
the power, "as an exception", for the Public Prosecutor to charge a person without previous investigation of the accusation (the Public Prosecutor himself decides whether to use this power);
the possibility to issue an order to appear in front of a court orally (leaving it to the person concerned to guess whether the bearer of the order is duly empowered or not).
The decrees further include a series of msures restricting the rights of the defendant.
A leading Croatian scholar who does not wish to be named, denounces the unconstitutionality of the decrees. He notes that the decrees appear to be in force, although the Croatian parliament, after many months of war, has never formally declared a state of war or of urgency just'rfying stringent restrictions of constitutional liberties and rights. What is more, President Tudjman issued the decrees at a time of relative calm.
Formally. Croatia is not confronted with a "state of war or an imminent threat to [its] independence ono unity" justifying the implementation of the decrees.
The expert notes that "an important aspect of protest against the old regime was resistance against the fact that military courts were empowered to judge civilians, even when no state of war had been declared' and he points out at the "de facto abolition of the separation of powers" by the decree allowing the President to dismiss an undesirable president of the Supreme Court.
The continuing use of these decrees must lead to a "gradual militarisation of society", the expert stresses. His warnings are confirmed by the recent events in Split.
Sources: ECF-Press release, 27.10.93, based on information from Split (in German); The situation after the promulgation of presidential decrees restricting citizens' rights in Croatia, an analysis of the urgency decrees, published in Gennan by ECF. Contact: ECF-Austria, Lobnik 16, A-9135 Eisenkappel; Tel: +43/4238 8705; Fax: +43/4238/87054.The European Civic Forum suggests that letters of protest against the human rights abuses and, in particular against the Croatian government's action against the DA, are sent to:
Mr. Franjo Tudjman, President oft the Republic of Cwatia, 41000 Zagrab, Croatia.