MP Removed from Parliament Chamber for Refusing to Wear Face Mask

ZAGREB, Sept 23, 2020 – MP Karolina Vidovic Kristo of the rightwing Homeland Movement was asked to leave the Parliament chamber on Wednesday after refusing to wear a face mask during the session.

“Please put your mask on or I will have to suspend you from the discussion,” Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandrokovic told Vidovic Kristo after she demanded that the national coronavirus response team lift the obligation for children to wear masks in school.

Jandrokovic then called a break and suspended the Homeland Movement MP for the day because she refused to wear a face mask.

Showing 1,033 letters from concerned parents demanding that the national coronavirus response team be disbanded, Vidovic Kristo called for an immediate end to what she said were questionable, excessive and unnecessary restrictions on children’s freedom.

“We demand that the obligation for children to wear face masks be revoked immediately,” the MP said, citing scientific research showing that wearing masks did not help in reducing the risk of infection with the coronavirus, but could cause health and mental problems in children.

She also criticised the excessive use of hand sanitisers and unnecessary tests for people showing no symptoms, saying that Croatia had wasted HRK 200 million on that.

Branko Bacic, the chairman of the parliamentary group of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), described Vidovic Kristo’s speech as scandalous, stressing that the national response team’s decisions had been upheld by the Constitutional Court.

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