Linta:Croatia erased 50,000 Serbs from register of residents

BELGRADE – The Croatian ministry of interior has unlawfully erased more than 50,000 ethnic Serbs from the national register of permanent residents in the period between 1991 and the end of 2013, the president of the Coalition of Refugee Associations in Serbia Miodrag Linta has said.

Linta called on the Croatian government to urgently pass a decision enabling all ethnic Serbs who have been unlawfully erased from the register of permanent residents to re-register and obtain identity cards at the expense of Croatia.

In an open letter to Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic, Linta pointed to years of discrimination against ethnic Serbs by officials of the Croatian ministry of interior.

By wrongly implementing Article 13 of the old act on permanent and temporary residence, which remained in force until the end of 2012, Croatian officials issued orders erasing ethnic Serbs from the register following official on-site verification, Linta said.

In addition, the police visited elderly Serbs requesting that they inform their sons, daughters or relatives living in Serbia or Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina that they must annul their registrations of permanent residence within about ten days or face fines and being erased from the register.

Unlike Croats from Bosnia and Herzegovina who now live in Croatia, ethnic Serbs have been unlawfully erased from the register of permanent residence over the past years, Linta said.

Under the old act on permanent and temporary residence, unregistering a person’s residence was only possible by personal request, Linta said, adding the law does not state that having Serbian citizenship or a Serbian identity card precludes Serb refugees from registering...