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Croatian President Zoran Milanović
Photo: Luka Stanzl / PIXSELL / imago images / Pixsell
After specific allegations about the way the Croatian authorities dealt with those seeking protection, the country's president called experts from the Anti-Torture Committee “pests”.
According to the Croatian media, they would "stick their noses in everywhere" and teach others.
The Council of Europe is also full of "ideologues and moralists" and is constantly proclaiming new guidelines.
One cannot greet migrants with the balalaika - an Eastern European plucking instrument - because the police are necessary for illegal border crossings.
And that must use "a certain amount of violence," said Milanović.
The tirade relates to new allegations by the European Anti-Torture Committee, which SPIEGEL reported on.
"Serious mistreatment" by police officers
The committee has documented how Croatian security officials pushed refugees back across the EU's external border in illegal pushbacks.
According to their own statements, the observers collected numerous credible and convincing reports of serious mistreatment by police officers.
According to their statements, the officials intercepted the refugees on Croatian territory, sometimes drove them back to the Bosnian border for hours and deported them illegally from the EU - without the people being able to apply for asylum.
The police officers beat the asylum seekers with batons and other hard objects, kicked them or threw them into the border river, even though their hands were tied.
Refugees also reported that the officers fired their weapons close to their bodies and sent them back naked across the border into Bosnia.
The report by the Anti-Torture Committee confirms research by SPIEGEL and other partners.
These had revealed in October that masked Croatian intervention police officers beat asylum seekers on the border with Bosnia and forced them out of the EU by force.
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