LINTA: CONTINUATION OF CROATIAN SOCIETY’S FASCISTIZATION

BELGRADE, JUNE 6 /SRNA/ – Broadcasting footage of last year's concert by Marko Perković Thompson at Zagreb's Hippodrome on Croatian Radiotelevision /HRT/ represents a continuation of the fascistization of Croatian society that began with the rise to power of Franjo Tuđman in 1990, emphasized Miodrag Linta, head of the Association of Serbs from the Region.

Linta stated that Thompson is the principal promoter of the Ustasha ideology in Croatia and has been actively working for decades, with the support of the authorities and the Catholic Church, to rehabilitate the criminal Ustasha regime and the genocidal NDH, announced the Association of Serbs from the Region. “For that reason, Thompson's concerts have been so far banned in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, and Slovenia, where he has been described as a promoter of neo-Nazism,” Linta emphasized. He stressed that the European Commission should initiate proceedings to suspend Croatia’s rights in the EU Council as it systematically violates the principle of the rule of law. “Numerous facts confirm the undeniable truth that Croatia does not sanction hate speech manifested through the denial of the genocide against Serbs in the NDH and its concentration camps, the glorification of Ustasha ideology and Ustasha criminals, the widespread public use of the Ustasha salute ‘For Honeland – Ready!’ and other Ustasha symbols at public events, in the media, at concerts, and sporting events,” Linta said. Linta recalled that Croatia adopted a decision in 1993 to pay pensions to surviving Ustasha members and their family members as a reward for the genocide committed against Serbs, Jews, and Roma. He also noted that, under a 1996 law on public holidays, May 15 was designated as a day of remembrance for “Croatian victims of freedom and independence”, because on that date in 1945 the remaining Ustasha forces signed their surrender at a castle near Bleiburg. He further stated that, through these decisions of the Croatian Parliament, Ustasha crimimals had effectively been declared fighters for freedom.