Protesting farmers from the Virovitica area decided against coming to Zagreb after police stopped them near Djurdjevac and Bjelovar on Saturday afternoon, said the organiser of the protest in Virovitica-Podravina County, Zvonko Pipic.
The farmers headed for Zagreb around 11 am with about 40 tractors, but after a six-hour drive and two police blockades, they decided against arriving in front of the Agriculture Ministry and returned to the road points they blocked this morning.
"The police didn't let us through. They evidently received orders to stop us at any cost from coming to Zagreb and exercising our right to peacefully protest," Pipic told Hina.
"Croatia is turning into a police state. People are very disappointed, but we won't give up," he said.
The farmers from the Virovitica area wanted to arrive in front of the Agriculture Minister because Minister Petar Cobankovic would not come to talks with them.
Despite announcements, farmers from the Vinkovci area did not head for Zagreb to join in anti-government protests.
Their leader Tomislav Pokrovac said they decided to reinforce the road points at which they were protesting. They have been stationed with tractors outside Vinkovci for 10 days now and this morning resumed a partial blockade of the Ilaca-Tovarnik state road.
Cobankovic said earlier today he would not go to talks with the protesting farmers in the Vinkovci area, as there was no money in the state budget for new demands.
The farmers ask, among other things, for the payment of incentives in the amount of HRK 2,250 per hectare, that the price of blue-dyed diesel fuel used in farming stay below HRK 4 per litre, that the accounts in which they receive incentives be unfrozen, and that the price of lease on state-owned farmland be cut by 50 per cent.
