140 arrested in Zagreb protests against construction in Varsavska pedestrian zone

15.07.10
At least 140 peo­ple have been arrest­ed in peace­ful protests Zagreb, Croa­t­ia, today as works began on a heav­i­ly unpop­u­lar entrance ramp to a pri­vate under­ground car park, which would destroy part of the city’s Varsavs­ka Street pedes­tri­an zone.

Around 200 police includ­ing riot police sealed off the street while work­ers erect­ed a fence around the con­struc­tion site and cut down 5 trees. Con­trac­tors have been attempt­ing to start work on the project since the begin­ning of the year but have until now been pre­vent­ed by protests, includ­ing the destruc­tion of a con­struc­tion fence in May and a sub­se­quent 33 day occu­pa­tion of the pedes­tri­an zone.

“It’s a trag­ic day for jus­tice in Croa­t­ia when riot police arrest 140 res­i­dents for enter­ing a pub­lic street instead of arrest­ing the deci­sion-mak­ers and investor who engaged in cor­rup­tion and nepo­tism in order to force this project through against mas­sive pub­lic oppo­si­tion”, com­ment­ed Jago­da Munic of Green Action. “In mid-June the State Attor­ney (DORH) issued a state­ment that legal irreg­u­lar­i­ties have been found in the project, but that inves­ti­ga­tions were still going on. Con­struc­tion must stop imme­di­ate­ly while these cor­rup­tion inves­ti­ga­tions are com­plet­ed”.

LATEST NEWS FROM 16 JULY — most of the activists have been released already and just few more activist are still arrest­ed but will be out very soon. At the end 150 peo­ple in total were arrest­ed. All of them have 8 days dis­trait order to come to the street where the protest was held (Varsavs­ka) and to streets near­by.

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