Representatives of the Coalition of Refugee Associations and the Association of Refugee Organisations in Serbia announced on Monday they would start collecting signatures to back up the already signed petition aimed at preventing Croatia's EU entry until the outstanding issues of Serb refugees were permanently resolved.

The petition was signed in mid-October by 100 refugee associations gathered in the two organisations. The collecting of signatures of support will begin on Saturday, December 15, said the president of the coalition, Miodrag Linta, adding that signatures would be collected until the end of January 2011.

"The aim is to gather as many signatures as possible," which will then be forwarded to "relevant institutions in Serbia, Croatia and the international community", Linta told a news conference.

"The signatures will be collected in Serbia, Montenegro, Republika Srpska, and we will try to gather as many signatures as possible in the United States, Canada, European countries, Australia and New Zealand," Linta said.

According to him, the petition has already been forwarded to 155 addresses in the international community, including the United nations, representatives of all 27 EU member states, the United States, Russia, China, European institutions and nongovernmental organisations.

The petition demands the solving of 12 outstanding issues of Serbs from Croatia and the initiators have announced they would ask the European Union not to allow the closing of Chapter 23, Judiciary and Fundamental Rights, in Croatia's EU entry talks.

Refugees, among other things, demand the restitution of property, reconstruction of houses damaged in the war and, as they say, in "terrorist operations", compensation for destroyed, damaged and missing movables and real estate, the restitution of tenancy rights or fair compensation without conditions and limitations.

Signatories to the petition also demand the payout of late pensions and ask that their years of service be recognised. They demand that verdicts for war crimes handed down in absentia be revised. They also requested "a fair and equal processing of war crimes and that ethnically-motivated trials no longer be held".

Their demands also include a speedy completion of the exhumation and identification of missing persons, the payout of their savings in foreign currencies and in the old Yugoslav currency, and compensation to Serb refugees because, as the associations said, they were not allowed to participate in the privatisation processes as other Croatian citizens.