The Croatian Bureau of Statistics (DZS) confirmed to press on Sunday afternoon that several irregularities had been identified in the process of census taking in the village of Smilcic and in Viskovo municipality, adding that the census takers responsible for the irregularities had been fired and that their supervisors had been suspended until their possible responsibility was established.
In the two communities, census takers advised citizens on their own against declaring their Serb Orthodox faith.
Officials at the DZS said they were confident the reported irregularities were due to ignorance and not some other reason.
They confirmed that the census taker in Smilcic wrote down Greek Catholic as the religion in four households.
The DZS apologised to the interviewed citizens as soon as the irregularity was reported, annulled the census forms and repeated the census taking procedure, DZS officials said.
As for Viskovo, the DSZ said that only one case was reported and that the irregularity was removed. "We believe that there was no ill intent, just ignorance, because the ethnicity and language were written down correctly," it said, adding that it was also looking into an irregularity reported in Borovo Naselje near Vukovar.
The statistics office dismissed claims by Serb National Council (SNV) president Milorad Pupovac who earlier in the day said that mistakes were made in the very making of the census form, which, he said, despite suggestions from EUROSTAT, did not contain all the necessary options on one's ethnicity, religion and language.
"The questionnaires are entirely aligned with international rules and regulations of the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, and that is not the reason for the reported irregularities," the DZS said.
