ZAGREB, February 8, 2019 – The Zadar Police have filed a report with juvenile prosecutors against a 15-year-old male student of a local secondary school who, using a lighter, branded a fellow female and a fellow male student with the letter U. The minor was reported for inflicting physical injuries.
The Science and Education Ministry on Thursday sent an inspection team to the Zadar school. Police said the injuries sustained by the two students were light.
The chair of the parliamentary Committee on Human and Ethnic Minority Rights, Milorad Pupovac of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), on Friday condemned an incident in a secondary school in Zadar where a student branded his two fellow students with the letter U, telling one of them that “she can now say that she is an Ustasha”, and called for a prompt response from the ministries of education, the interior and justice.
“This disturbing act constitutes a breach of the Constitution with regard to ethnic equality and unobstructed exercise of rights related to ethnicity, the Non-Discrimination Act and Article 325 of the Penal Code, which bans any incitement of hate and violence,” Pupovac said.
It is clear that school institutions lack the awareness of the nature of the problem and what needs to be done to prevent similar incidents and make students fully aware of what is allowed and what is unlawful, he said.
The most worrying aspect is that there are people in the school system that obviously do not mind incidents of this kind and, on the other hand, people who are afraid of such situations. “This requires additional education to make teachers, students and the public aware that displaying the Ustasha symbols and salute is not and cannot be tolerated,” said the Serb minority MP, adding that the incident in Zadar bore witness to how serious the situation in society was in general. “That kind of symbols must not be legal anywhere, especially not among children and students.”
Pupovac also said that even though minors were concerned, police should act and not downplay the problem, the more so as parents of students attending the school in question had repeatedly complained about peer violence.
More news about the extremism in Croatia can be found in the Politics section.
