ZAGREB, October 22, 2020 – The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, on Wednesday called on Croatia’s authorities to stop violence against migrants at its border with Bosnia and Herzegovina and to start punishing the police officers responsible for inhumane treatment of irregular migrants.
For some time foreign and local nongovernmental organisations have been accusing Croatia’s law enforcement authorities of extreme violence and collective expulsions of migrants who are trying to pass through Croatia in an attempt to reach western or northern Europe. Croatia’s authorities reject such allegations every time.
Mijatovic underscores that reports about rising violence and other crimes allegedly committed by law enforcement officers have been arriving despite the fact that that two years ago she called on Croatia’s authorities to investigate those allegations.
Mijatovic says that she is worried by the government’s rejection of the allegations made by the nongovernmental organisations and investigative journalists.
The CoE commissioner says that the independent Croatian institutions for human rights protection and international organisations, including various bodies of the CoE and UN special rapporteurs, have raised an alarm about the situation along Croatia’s borders.
