The organisers and participants of Saturday's anti-EU rally in downtown Zagreb who were arrested by the police held a news conference on Sunday, complaining about police brutality and about having been kept in custody handcuffed at the back for three and a half hours. They added that this would not discourage them from continuing their fight against Croatia's EU accession.
Yesterday's protest rally in Zagreb's central Ban Jelacic Square was organised by the "Movement for Croatia - No to the EU".
The leader of the Autochthonous Croatian Peasant Party of Rights, Drazen Keleminec, said at the news conference that Croatians would vote against EU entry because it was not in their interest.
Asked to comment on Croatian army general Ante Gotovina calling on Croatians to vote for Croatia's EU entry, Keleminec said that the media had manipulated his statement and that Gotovina had actually called on Croatians to vote according to their conscience, which he said was how his party had understood his message.
General Gotovina said on Saturday he would vote for Croatia's accession to the European Union in Sunday's referendum, said Luka Misetic, one of the attorneys representing Gotovina before the Hague tribunal where he is standing trial for war crimes.
Keleminec said that the police arrested him and five other participants and organisers of the anti-EU rally who tried to take down the European Union flag in the Ban Jelacic Square, pressing charges against them for disturbing the peace and assaulting and insulting a police officer, and against him for violating the Law on Public Assembly.
Keleminec said that after a medical examination, they were taken to a hospital where they were found to have been injured. He added that there had been no reason for police to use force because they had not been attacked.
The leader of the association "Righteous", Natko Kovacevic, said they would not allow President Ivo Josipovic, Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic, former PM Jadranka Kosor and Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic to "trample on the Croatian Constitution and laws".
He said that a "Yugoslav secret police and communist oligarchy has been running Croatia for 70 years" and called on citizens to gather in the Ban Jelacic Square later in the evening if they doubted that the referendum had been carried out in line with the law.
The Zagreb police confirmed that the arrested men sought and were given medical help. They said that at present there was no reason to believe that the police had overstepped their powers and that they would wait for medical reports to make a final conclusion.
