Croatian president defends police dealing with migrants

0 Comment(s)Print E-mail Xinhua, July 17, 2019
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ZAGREB, July 16 (Xinhua) -- Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic reiterated her support for protecting the border from illegal migrants on Tuesday, after foreign media reported her admitting the use of violence by Croatian police against migrants.

During her visit to Switzerland last week, Grabar-Kitarovic gave an interview to Swiss state-owned broadcaster SRF, in which she talked about the actions of Croatian police at the border with the neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"Of course, some violence is needed when you implement pushback, but you have to see what kind of terrain there is," she told SRF on July 9.

Some commentators have criticized the president for actually confirmed that the police had violated both Croatian and international laws in dealing with migrants.

In a statement released by the President's Office on Tuesday, Grabar-Kitarovic strongly rejected "the attempt to reinterpret the statements related to the issues of protection of the Croatian borders against illegal migration".

She said that Croatian police in the performance of the state border control work, and thus the European Union's borders, in the prevention of the illegal migration, operates legally, professionally and humane, and the means of coercion towards law offenders are applied to the minimum necessary to protect the security of the police and to perform their duties.

"Security is the fundamental condition for the stability and the development of Croatia, and is thus one of my key tasks... These are the facts that no game words, wrong translations or contextual excerpts of statements can and will not change," said Grabar-Kitarovic. Enditem

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