Croatia described as "land of hatred and intimidation"

The report describes Croatia as a country fostering a climate of hatred and intimidation, and one "increasingly moving to the right" - while ruled by "a radical political discourse where the keywords are 'enemy, homeland, nation, and, treason'."

"(Croatia) joining the EU changed nothing, a climate of hatred and intimidation rules in the country," the radio said, according to the Croatian website index. hr, Tanjug reported on Thursday.

Croatia is also described as "imprisoned inside a history that it refuses to face" - with the reactions to the Hague courtroom suicide of convicted Bosnian Croat war criminal Slobodan Praljak cited as "the latest example."

"(Croatian) PM Andrej Plenkovic spoke about a deep moral injustice, without thinking about the camps, and the constant firing on residential areas, which was, among other things, what the general (Praljak) was convicted for. The prime minister considered the Hague (Tribunal, ICTY) verdict to be unjust," the German broadcaster said, noting that "Croatia's first president, Franjo Tudjman, was also named as a member of a joint criminal enterprise."

Croatian Zagreb-based social psychologist Dinka Corkalo-Biruski is then quoted as saying that the country's key problem is a failure to "move on with its life after the (1990s) war, instead embarking on glorifying and adulating the war, and, a narrative that left no room for anything except our victory, our victims, and our suffering."

And that is "no basis to build a positive public identity," she opined.

To speak about the condition of the Croatian society sounds like citing a mental patient's record, the German radio said, according to the report - "so it is no wonder that the public discourse is...