The report is the result of an ad hoc coalition of civil society organizations in Croatia, coordinated by the Human Rights House of Zagreb. The coalition held several working meetings in order to make an integral review, and be able to report on the state and protection of human rights in the Republic of Croatia.

The goal of these organizations is to point to areas of the most striking human rights violations with recommendations how the present situation could and should be improved.

The report was created for a new UN mechanism for the protection and estimation of the level of the respect of human rights in UN member countries – the UPR (Universal Periodic Review). State of human rights in Croatia, will be under the review this year within the UPR mechanism, on the 9th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, more precisely on 29th November, 2010.

As for the expectations regarding the report, the president of the Board of the HRH Zagreb, Sanja Sarnavka (photo on left), said that the coalition members expect serious debates in Croatia on this report and serious recommendations made to the Government. They will do their best to make these ”shadow reports” available to Croatian public, and open for discussions among the citizens and other relevant parties, in order to achieve certain progress of the current situation of human rights in the Republic of Croatia. 

”In our case, it is important to change some laws – Law on Free Legal Aid, firstly, then the Law on Freedom of Information. There are also some legislations that yet have to be brought, and some international documents to be ratified. However, a key problem still remains non-consistent and non-systematic implementation of these documents, where the Government should certainly invest more effort”, said Mrs. Sarnavka.

The Republic of Croatia has ratified almost all relevant international documents (conventions and optional protocols) concerning the protection of human rights. However, the European Convention on Access to Official Documents is waiting to be ratified.

According to the report, the main issue of Croatia is poor or no implementation of the ratified international documents. Although all international conventions are "superior" to the national legislation, references to these important international human rights protection mechanisms rarely appear in court rulings. Also, the Republic of Croatia does not report on a regular basis to the treaty bodies.

The following organisations participated in the work of the coalition: Human Rights House Zagreb (B.a.B.e. – gender equality, human rights and gender based violence; Centre for Peace Studies, Documenta – Dealing with the Past, Civic Committee for Human Rights, DAWN – mental health, UPIM – people with disabilities), Youth Network Croatia, GONG, Green Action, CESI – Centre for education, counselling and research, Association for Self Advocacy, Association for Promoting Inclusion, Croatian Association of Deaf-blind Persons, Centre for Peace Osijek, Centre for Peace Vukovar, Coalition for promotion and protection of human rights, Kontra, and Queer Zagreb, all with the support of the Human Rights House Foundation.

Joint UPR submission is available for download.

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