The Croatian police protects the border from illegal migration and illegal actions, as it is its legal obligation in order to ensure peace and security for its citizens
We would like to inform the Croatian public that we are faced with the second wave of serious unfounded accusation against the Croatian police.
We would like to remind you that the first wave coincided with the adoption of the decision on meeting all technical requirements for the accession to the Schengen Area, as well as with the Croatian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Both of the previously mentioned waves of accusations originate from the same source, i.e. a group of non-governmental organisations which have been and still are active in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while none of them are active in the territory of the Republic of Croatia.
Their sole objective is to discredit the Republic of Croatia, to negate the facts that Croatia has the right to protect its border and their final goal is creating pressure and fabricating a negative image in the public in order to prevent the adoption of the decision on our membership in the Schengen Area.
The Republic of Croatia does not protect its border in order to join the Schengen Area and it does not protect it to gain European funds to equip its police. The Croatian police protects the border from illegal migration, from illegal actions and dangers which can be connected to persons without documents and identity, which is done in order to provide peace and security to the citizens of Croatia.
Mass fights, attacks on citizens and conflicts between migrants which often result in fatalities, which are unfortunately witnessed by the citizens of our neighbouring country Bosnia and Herzegovina, are not part of the reports published by those organisations, nor may such events be questioned. The only thing which can be questioned is Croatia's right to protects its border.
The intention of illegal migrants who move along the so-called Balkan Route is not to be registered on that route, those who are able to do so and who are found in Croatia will request asylum and they will sooner or later continue their illegal journey, most often towards Austria, Germany and Italy. This creates a vicious circle, on one hand it creates secondary migration, since migrants are returned to Croatia by other countries, only to try to illegally cross again – until they succeed, while on the other hand, this causes a significant misuse of the international protection system in Croatia. In most cases, these are single men from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Bangladesh, Algeria and Morocco between the ages of 20 and 45.
We have warned foreign media about this matter on multiple occasions; however, since they do not publish such information, as well as the numerous examples when migrants were rescued in the territory of Croatia, it becomes obvious that they do not believe these facts would be interesting to their readers.
Aware of the fact that the actions which we are accused of can have a negative effect on the Croatian police, we are the first Member State in the European Union which opened discussions with the European Commission, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights and other stakeholders and we are ready to establish an independent monitoring mechanism for actions taken at the border.
This is done at our request and in this manner, we want to prove the regularity and legality of our actions.
Regarding the published sequence recordings, we would like to inform the public that we were aware of its content before the publication and we analysed it in great detail. The sequence recordings contain a series of inconsistencies and contradictions, both in the behaviour as well as in the clothing of the participants, therefore it is impossible to confirm with certainty that these are regular members of the Croatian police.
We do not tolerate any violence in border protection, nor is it part of our procedures; therefore, we conclude that we have not recorded any actions taken on the date and location mentioned in the statement.
Of course, we will thoroughly investigate the said events on the basis of available information as in all previous cases and we will inform the Croatian and the general public as well as the European Commission of all our findings.
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