After the British Guardian had reported on alleged violence the migrants on the border with Bosnia suffer at the hands of Croatian border police, BBC on Monday published a video in which they spoke with the migrants who claim that the Croatian police beat them, robbed them, and then illegally pushed them back to Bosnia.
In the video, titled “Beaten and robbed: how Croatia is policing its borders”, BBC talked with migrants on the Maljevac border crossing, near the Bosnian town of Bihac, which thousands are trying to cross in their attempts to reach the EU. The migrants, some of them as young as 17, showed bruises and scars on their bodies, saying the Croatian police were using force to expel them back to Bosnia.
“They hit me. I told them, ‘what are you doing, I’m a minor. Don’t hit me,’ (but) they hit me more,” 17-year-old Mustafa, from Egypt, told BBC.
“The orders come from the top”
BBC also spoke to Bihac mayor Suhret Fazlic, who said he witnessed the police pushbacks in the forest on Bosnia’s territory.
“I saw them (the Croatian police). I said (it’s illegal). They said they had orders to do it and that they were just ordinary policemen, that it was not up to them to discuss this,” Fazlic said.
The story was confirmed by one Croatian border police officer, who agreed to speak to BBC under the condition of anonymity.
He said he himself took part in three cases of pushbacks.
“I got orders from my superior, and he got (them) from his. It goes all the way up to the top,” he said. “Later we realised it was wrong.”
The police officer added they were ordered to catch the migrants before they reached human rights groups or any other place where they would help them to officially request asylum.
Tapes by activists and foreign media show illegal pushbacks
Hidden cameras set by activists near the border area last winter captured several cases of pushback in just a few days. BBC video showed footage in which a Croatian police officer, with a gun in his hand, is seen leading migrants through the forest and out of the EU. He can be heard shouting “one line”, while another officer is walking behind the group and rushing them along.
Some migrants in BBC’s video claimed that the Croatian police, before expelling them back to Bosnia, took their money and destroyed their phones. One migrant said the police took €700 from him. In August last year, Guardian reported on migrants’ testimonies, which echoed these latest accusations.
Croatia is denying they are returning the migrants illegally back to Bosnia, in spite of footage that shows otherwise, BBC said.
One example is the video report published by the Swiss public broadcaster, SRF, in May this year, which clearly showed Croatian police vans driving the migrants to a remote area on the border and pushing them back to Bosnia.
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Such pushbacks are illegal, BBC said, because, under EU law, every asylum seeker must be given a proper hearing.
About 20,000 migrants have passed this way in the last year, BBC said, adding that some 5,000 are still in Bosnia, trying to reach the European Union.
The Croatian government has declined to respond to questions by the BBC, the video said.
President Grabar-Kitarovic: “Don’t rely on foreign media”
BBC’s video also reported on the recent visit by Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic to the Kordunski Ljeskovac border crossing, where she said the migrants’ injuries were not inflicted by the border police, but instead caused by the rough terrain they were crossing.
“Look at this terrain. When someone wades through such a terrain, it is normal that they get scratches, bruises, and bodily injuries,” Grabar-Kitarovic had said, flanked by the Interior Minister, Davor Bozinovic, and border police officers. “Bear this in mind when you hear all kinds of stories about brutality of our police. They are not, I absolutely guarantee that.”
“They exercise the level of force prescribed by Croatian and EU legislation,” she added.
In a recent interview with the Swiss public broadcaster SRF, the president admitted that the Croatian police were indeed using pushbacks in dealing with migrants, which was carried by international media, including the Guardian.
She later claimed her words were misinterpreted and taken out of context, saying “the SRF’s conduct was not anywhere near professional, but instead… similar to the world’s worst tabloids.”
SRF denounced her criticism, saying in an email forwarded to N1 that the interview they aired was conducted according to professional principles.
“In particular, we asked clear, transparent questions about our research at the Croatian-Bosnian border. We cannot understand the accusation of decontextualisation because we broadcast both the questions and the immediate answer of President Grabar-Kitarovic . We also checked the translation from English into German before publication according to the six-eye principle,” the SRF said.
When asked to comment on the criticism her words caused in the foreign press, Grabar-Kitarovic advised Croatian reporters to not follow foreign media, saying “they work in I don’t know whose interest,” and instead instructed them that, “as Croatian media, you must present the Croatian side of the story,” a statement slammed by the Croatian Journalists’ Association as “scandalous and unworthy of the office she holds.”
