Riot police arrest 23 in night raid on peaceful protest against the destruction of Zagreb pedestrian zone

11.02.2010
At 03.30 this morn­ing around 100 riot police arrest­ed 23 activists from Green Action and the Right to the City ini­tia­tive in Zagreb, Croa­t­ia. The raid took place just hours after 4000 peo­ple turned out in snowy con­di­tions to protest against turn­ing part of the pedes­tri­an zone into a ramp for an under­ground garage planned as part of the Cvjet­ni shop­ping cen­tre and lux­u­ry flats devel­op­ment in the old part of Zagreb.

11.02.2010
At 03.30 this morn­ing around 100 riot police arrest­ed 23 activists from Green Action and the Right to the City ini­tia­tive in Zagreb, Croa­t­ia. The raid took place just hours after 4000 peo­ple turned out in snowy con­di­tions to protest against turn­ing part of the pedes­tri­an zone into a ramp for an under­ground garage planned as part of the Cvjet­ni shop­ping cen­tre and lux­u­ry flats devel­op­ment in the old part of Zagreb.

The oper­a­tion aimed to remove the accom­mo­da­tion con­tain­er which the groups had put on Varsavs­ka Street pedes­tri­an zone as a 24-hour info-point in order to block the begin­ning of works on the ramp, which is still under legal dis­pute. Activists inside of the con­tain­er and on the roof peace­ful­ly resist­ed removal by lock­ing them­selves togeth­er using arm tubes, and were arrest­ed after the fire brigade cut the tubes. Around 50 more activists blocked the road exits of the lor­ry car­ry­ing the con­tain­er but were also removed by the riot police.

The police also hacked to pieces a five-metre high wood­en tro­jan horse which had been brought to the site for the pre­vi­ous evening’s protest as a sym­bol of pri­vate inter­ests and cor­rup­tion mas­querad­ing as urban rede­vel­op­ment.

“Using riot police against a small group of peace­ful pro­test­ers is a dis­turb­ing over-reac­tion to the civ­il offence of fail­ing to obtain per­mis­sion before tem­porar­i­ly plac­ing the con­tain­er in the pedes­tri­an zone”, said Teo Celakos­ki from Right to the City. “Yet the whole Cvjet­ni project is based on dubi­ous legal manoeu­vres such as the city author­i­ties’ deci­sion to declare it a project of pub­lic inter­est when it is clear­ly noth­ing of the kind”.

“The Croa­t­ian author­i­ties must con­cen­trate on tack­ling the real prob­lem of cor­rup­tion instead of shoot­ing the mes­sen­gers, added Tomis­lav Toma­se­vic, from Green Action. “The Euro­pean Com­mis­sion has repeat­ed­ly iden­ti­fied cor­rup­tion as a major remain­ing obsta­cle to Croa­t­i­a’s EU Acces­sion but if this project is any­thing to go by there is still a long way to go.”

Videos of removal of activists & removal of ship­ping con­tain­er

Con­tact: Tomis­lav Toma­se­vic. +385 98 719 253
http://www.zelena-akcija.hr/