Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic said on Monday the police would make sure that dual alphabet signs be put up on 20 buildings in the eastern town of Vukovar, and that all those destroying property would be punished and pay the damage.
Asked on RTL television about the prosecution of protesters who lightly injured four police officers and destroyed property in Vukovar earlier today, Ostojic said it was disgraceful that two policemen and two policewomen were injured in an attack although they had not been using force.
"They didn't even try to defend themselves, although they were attacked. They were trying to peacefully enable the placing of the signs, but some evidently don't hold that sacred," he said, adding that the perpetrators were in custody and would be punished, and that police would find all those that took part in today's criminal acts.
Ostojic said that had the Vukovar police reacted differently, they would have been accused of using force. "We truly believed that everyone would respect the Croatian police uniform and that they would respect the institution they say they fought for."
"In the future, we won't allow such attacks on the police," he said, adding that those resorting to violence could not excuse themselves by being war veterans.
As for announcements by the Initiative for the Defence of Vukovar of further actions against the placing of Latin and Cyrillic signs, the interior minister said everyone had the right to protest but that this right should be exercised legally. He reiterated that violence and destruction of state property were not allowed.
All those who think that the constitutional law on ethnic minorities' rights should not be applied are free to initiate its amendment, "and then we will apply a new one when it is adopted," said Ostojic.
Asked to comment on messages that no one from the government need come to Vukovar on November 18, Vukovar Remembrance Day, he said that if someone was entitled to usurp a place of respect and the honouring of Vukovar's war victims, this said more about them than about others.
"Those who fell in Vukovar fell for democratic Croatia, for a country of the rule of law and order, certainly not for violence."
Asked if a halfway solution could be found to the issue of bilingual signs in Vukovar, Ostojic said it was hypocritical that those who had adopted Vukovar's statute, and claimed that bilingualism would be the right of every resident of the town, had now changed their minds.
He said bilingual signs could not be a reason for violence, attacking police, destroying state property and new divides.
