Croatia sends protest note to Serbia

Croatia sent a protest note to Serbia because of the treatment and attitude towards its citizens in that country.

It was reported that Croatia requested explanation and voiced a strong protest on the treatment of five Croatian citizens in Serbia.

This, writes Croatian Index, has been disclosed Wednesday by Foreign Minister Gordan Grliq Radman.

“We will send a protest note, inform the European Union delegation in Belgrade of the actions of the Serbian authorities and their behaviour that has put Croatian citizens in humiliating positions”, he said.

“We will systematically collect all cases of mistreatment of Croatian citizens and inform the European Commission and the Polish Presidency (BE) for this and, of course, review the recommendation for the trip of Croatian citizens to Serbia,”.

Grliq Radman explained that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' recommendation for travel to the neighbouring state will be changed for the protection and security of Croats.

“As I see it, security is suspicious,” said the head of Croatian diplomacy.

We remember that five Croatian citizens, representatives of nongovernmental organisations that participated in workers organised by Erste Stiftung in Belgrade, spent a good night with Belgrade police, which eventually expelled them from Serbia yesterday morning prevented their entry into Serbia for a year, Jutarnji list reported.

The decision they issued ranked “reasons for protecting Serbia's security and its citizens” as the reason for their expulsion.

This is not the first time Croatian citizens experienced concerns in Serbia. At the end of last year, Serbian painters already proclaimed about twenty students from Zagreb's Faculty of Engineering and Technology (FER), who arrived in Belgrade to visit their colleagues as spies, publishing their photos in the media.

A bus with students from Zagreb's Faculty of Engineering and Technology, who were visiting colleagues from a relevant faculty in Belgrade and attending a holiday at the Belgrade Students' Club of Engineering, was banned by leaving Serbia.

Last week, Vojislav Seshel, a convicted war criminal and former political lawyer of the current Serbian president, Aleksandar Vuciq, published Croatian journalist Matj Devciq's identification from media Telegram on the Informer show, showing which hotel he was staying in.

Devciq was in Serbia to report student protests. During his television presentation, Seshel cited several other people along with their Croatian identity cards, also linking them to the protests.