A civil initiative which offers support for refugees who enter Croatia called on Croatian police officers on Monday to disobey orders to expel refugees from the country, saying this would demonstrate how senseless it is to protect the border from people in need of safety, as well as improve the image of Croatian police.

While the public praises border patrol officers for their work protecting the border, the officers are persecuting the refugees who often suffer physical violence and sexual harassment, as shown by testimonies and reports by both local and international organisations, the initiative warned. 

The initiative said that downplaying such actions by claiming they were only individual cases was an attempt to cover up “these systematic inhumane actions.”

The initiative called on all police officers who oppose the widespread practice of expelling refugees back to Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as those who are under orders to engage in violent acts of expulsion to report their personal experience anonymously to the initiative.

It also called on the public to exert pressure on the government and police to establish civil control of the border and effective civil control of the police, which, as it said, has not been functioning for years.

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