Croatia, police officers in balaclavas beat asylum seekers: it is senior government officials who direct the illegal pushbacks

ROME – When Lighthouse Reports released, in 2021, videos of Croatian police officers, their faces hidden in black balaclavas, beating asylum seekers and illegally forcing them to cross the border into Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Croatian government was quick to deny any involvement . Those illegal operations – Croatian Interior Minister Davor Božinovi assured? – had been an isolated case. The responsible police officers had not acted on government instructions and neither the ministers nor the police chiefs knew anything about it.

The skepticism of activists. Migration experts, asylum lawyers and human rights activists were skeptical. Indeed, they suspected that high-ranking Croatian officials were aware of the pushbacks practiced at the border, which took place as part of a police operation known as “Korridor“, and believed that they even ordered them.

The investigation of Lighthouse Report. The organization, in collaboration with Der Spiegel, Nova TV, Novosti Weeklythe Austrian broadcaster ORF And Telegram, has obtained evidence that government officials, contrary to what they have always claimed, were aware of the illegal treatment that the police reserved for asylum seekers at the border. The police shared a Whatsapp group called “OA Koridor II- Zapad”, in which he published sensitive information on the arrests of foreign nationals, including photographs, in the period between August 2019 and February 2020. For the government, the chat was part of one of many similar operations that Croatia was carrying out against irregular migration and crimes related to human trafficking.

migrants lying face down. The chat was a tool clearly outside any official means of communication and far from the usual border monitoring procedures. An analysis of 60 screenshots made by the organization found that 33 people were participating, including senior Croatian officials, including the head of the border police Zoran Niceno and the head of the public relations department Jelena Bikic, who reported directly to the Interior Minister Božinovic. The WhatsApp group was used to exchange information on the arrests of over 1,300 Afghan, Pakistani and Syrian people, therefore nationalities who in many cases would have been entitled to political asylum. The messages were often accompanied by photos of the migrants, with their faces clearly visible, in some cases forced to lie face down on the ground or take off their shoes.

The illegality of the chat. Experts and police sources explained – he underlines Lighthouse Report – that sharing such information on a privately owned platform like WhatsApp violates multiple police regulations. The group was then used to unofficially document the push-back of migrants across the border, in violation of Croatian and European law, so that there would be no trace of these operations.

The rejections. In a WhatsApp message, the head of the Zagreb police in charge of border control can be read that on the evening of February 13, 2020, he asked for five vans to execute “odvra?anje”, after arresting a group of 80 migrants. Odvra?anje is a Croatian word which means “rejection” or “deterrence” and which in recent years – activists say – has become a code word for rejections. Police sources consulted by the authors of the investigation therefore confirm that a message of this type indicated an illegal refoulement in progress.

The testimony of an asylum seeker. The volunteers of Border Violence Monitoring Network – coalition of over 14 Organizations aiming to document illegal pushbacks and police violence in EU Member States – collected the story of a Pakistani man, whose pushback was documented by a series of messages recorded in the chat in the August 2019 and which told of the deportation of 85 foreign citizens who were in fact illegally denied the possibility of applying for asylum.

The chat to check journalists. The WhatsApp group was also used to exchange information on journalists in the border area. In one case chat members were informed of the presence of Bernt Koshuch, envoy of the Austrian broadcaster ORF, in the Cetingrad area. A photo of the man and a colleague was also shared.

Korridor’s operations. Every year, millions of euros flow into Zagreb’s state coffers for migration management. Yet, although the violence on the Croatian border is now a known fact, the EU has not launched any infringement proceedings against the country. “The current silence, impunity and even implicit encouragement from the Commission and other Member States only fuel these grave violations against vulnerable people seeking protection,” says Dutch MEP Tineke Strik, of Left Green. For Bodo Weber, del Democratization Policy Council of Berlin, this Whatsapp group confirms what has been suspected for some time and that is that the pushback campaign of the Croatian police is directed from within the Ministry of the Interior.