Croatia Ombudsperson Condemns Police Inaction Over Fascist Chant

Croatian Ombudsperson Lora Vidovic on Tuesday said that if police failed to initiate legal action against former members of a paramilitary unit, who on Monday celebrated the anniversary of Operation Storm by chanting the Fascist slogan "Za dom spremni", it will be a blatant violation of the legal order.

Croatia on Monday marked the 24th anniversary of the 1995 military blitz that quashed a breakaway Serbian statelet, the Republic of Serbian Krajina, RSK, but also put to flight some 200,000 Serb civilians.

As usual, the Croatian political leadership gathered on Monday in the Dalmatian town of Knin, the former RSK headquarters, to celebrate the anniversary.

But the event was marred when members of a wartime paramilitary unit, the Croatian Defence Forces, HOS, with their commander, Marko Skejo, arrived carrying HOS flags, dressed in black and chanting "Za dom spremni" - "Ready for the Homeland" - which is a highly controversial slogan associated with the World War II Fascist Ustasa movement.

HOS-ovci u Kninu uzvikivali 'Za dom spremni', Skejo: 'To je kao kad u crkvi kažete hvaljen Isus i Marija' https://t.co/gpeAM6BSZR pic.twitter.com/lrIGltiI5u

— Vijesti.hr (@vijestihr) August 5, 2019

Police did not intervene. The local police chief, Ivica Kostanic, said this was because two years ago, on the grounds of the same behaviour, when police filed a misdemeanour charge against HOS members and Skejo, the courts later acquitted him.

However, Vidovic said the police should still have reacted and that it was unacceptable for them to take on the role of a court.

Referring to the acquittal of Skejo, she said: "The important point is that such judgments are not a source of law, and as such they cannot serve...

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