ZAGREB, December 23, 2019 – Councillors of the DSHV party representing the Croat community in Serbia on Monday walked out of a Subotica Council meeting in protest against obstruction of the formation of a Croat school centre in the northern city.
DSHV president Tomislav Žigmanov said after the DSHV representatives left the meeting that although a year ago this party had proposed amending the decision on Subotica’s network of pre-school institutions and elementary schools as a precondition for the registration of the Croat school centre, this item had not yet been added to the council’s agenda.
“This is a more than obvious act of discrimination when it comes to initiatives by the Croat community,” said Žigmanov.
The DSHV criticised the local Serb Progressive Party (SNS) and the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians for discrimination against the ethnic Croats in the city.
The Croatian school centre is the largest project of the Croat community in the education field since the introduction of lessons in the Croatian language in 2002.
There has been no official explanation from the city authorities of the reasons for the delay.
Žigmanov said that the project had been discussed with Serbia’s top officials and that it was also one of the recommendations made by the Serbia-Croatia intergovernmental committee on minorities.
More news about the status of Croats in Serbia can be found in the Diaspora section.
