The Centre for Peace Studies marks International Human Rights Day with new criminal charges, for one of today's biggest human rights violations. The Centre for Peace Studies today filed two criminal complaints to the public prosecutors, for two separate cases, against unknown police perpetrators due to a reasonable doubt that they kept in detention 13 victims in total, two of whom were children, and then handed them over to ten armed men dressed in black uniforms, with balaclavas on their heads. 

After four years of continuous warning about human rights violations perpetrated by the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Interior’s statement announcing the establishment of an independent border monitoring mechanism allegedly prompted by the video released yesterday showing violent pushbacks seems rather unconvincing.

The Centre for Peace Studies (CMS) has launched a campaign called #ovdježivimo (#welivehere) within Refugee Weeks in Croatia to share the stories of refugees who have found their new home in Croatia about their integration in the new environment.

Today, Centre for Peace Studies filed a criminal complaint to the State Attorney's Office in Zagreb against the unknown perpetrators police officers based on a reasonable doubt of degrading treatment and torture of 33 people and their violent, illegal expulsion from the territory of the Republic of Croatia to Bosnia-Herzegovina. 

This morning, Centre for Peace Studies and the Welcome! Initiative organized a street action in front of the Ministry of Interior (MoI) building. Activists requested to the responsible institution to initiate effective investigations, instead of denying violence against refugees.

Ahead of the informal meeting of European Foreign Affairs Ministers, Centre for Peace Studies, Are You Syrious, Welcome Initiative and Forum 2020 warned that the EU has to urgently adopt sustainable and humane solutions for the humanitarian crisis at the Greece-Turkey land border, as well as on Greek islands and other external borders of the EU. A banner with the message “For Open Europe” was displayed at the press conference. 

The NGOs Centre for Peace Studies and Are You Syrious, sent an open letter to Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, on behalf of Forum2020, asking him to push for a reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS).

Today, Croatia received the green light from the European Commission to enter the border-free Schengen Area. While we agree that expanding the Schengen space can be a positive and much-needed move towards improvement of free movement inside the European Union, Croatia’s Schengen membership should be made conditional on the immediate end to the Croatian Government’s illegal and violent push-back of migrants. 

Joint statement of the Coalition for Rights and Wellbeing of Forced Migrants along Euro-Balkan's Routes

Migration, although one of the key topics for the European Union, was not adequately represented in the pre-election campaign in Croatia. That is why the Center for Peace Studies, ahead of the EU Parliament elections, decided to organize the panel discussion Europe and Migration: Where do we draw the line?. Centre for Peace Studies invited representatives of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, who today, on May 20th in Zagreb, presented their insights on the relations of the EU member states towards migration.