Jail Us, We Will Continue with Our Legal Assistance Projects!

ZaMirZine

12 September 2007

A coalition of twenty organizations sent an open letter to the Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and Minister of Justice Ana Lovrin, on the occasion of the adoption of the final proposal of the Law on the Right to Legal Assistance.

The organizations point out again to the fact that the adoption of the Law will deny all protection to the citizens of Croatia, while members of CSOs working on any type of legal assistance or information risk to be declared hedge-writers, i.e. criminal offenders.

The members of the coalition remind in their letter that they demanded, on several occasions, a meeting to argument their claims about the dangers and risks brought about by this Draft-Law and creation of a new working group, without any success.

They write that their conclusion is that the Government decided to ignore all CSOs which, over the past ten or so years, offered legal protection and information to hundreds of thousands of citizens and turn them into hedge-writers, under the cover of approximation of Croatian legislation to EU�s acquis communautaire.

�The Associations involved in the Coalition will continue with their activities in the area of providing legal assistance and information to the citizens, even if it meant that we have to go to prison�, says Ariana Vela from GONG, coordinator of the coalition.

The Coalition, in addition to GONG, includes SMART; CESI; Serb Democratic Forum; the O-Zone; Centre for Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights Osijek; Izvor; Autonomous Women House Zagreb; Zelena Akcija; OGI; CMS; B.a.B.e.; HHO; Centre for Peace, Legal Advise and Psychosocial Assistance Vukovar; Karlovac Human Rights Committee; Dalmatian Solidarity Committee; Civic Initiatives Organization; Sisak Human Rights Project; Coalition for Promotion and Protection of Human Rights � Osijek; and Croatian Women Network.