Skinheads attack Roma in Croatia

11 July 2000

On June 1, 2000, in Zagreb, a group of skinheads allegedly attacked a nine-year-old Romani girl named S.D. in front of a shopping centre. According to the Zagreb daily Jutarnji list of June 3, 2000, the skinheads beat the girl, took away her jewellery, and threatened to rape her if she and her family did not leave town within twenty-four hours. The girl complained to her family, and they immediately confronted the skinheads. On the same night, a larger group of skinheads went to the family's house, threw a brick through one of the windows, damaged one of their cars, and verbally abused the family. Eventually the police intervened and detained three skinheads and four Roma. In another incident of anti-Romani violence in Croatia, on April 23, 2000, a group of fifteen ethnic Croats attacked and beat Mr Darko Beganović, a twenty-three-year-old Romani man from Luka, twenty-one kilometers northwest of Zagreb, according to the Zagreb-based Union of Roma in Croatia (Stranka Roma Hrvatske).

(Jutarnji list, Union of Roma in Croatia)