Zagreb Police have completed an investigation against a 36-year-old man arrested on suspicion of throwing food at an MP Milorad Pupovac for the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), Milorad Pupovac, at Zagreb's Dolac farmers' market. The man was brought to court on charges of misdemeanor.

The Serb National Council (SNV) said in a press release last week that two MPs for the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), Milorad Pupovac and Boris Milosevic, were attacked on September 28 at the Zagreb Dolac farmers’ market, when food was thrown at them, which they consider was hate-incited.

SNV noted that the two MPs were passing through the Dolac market when Pupovac felt something hit him and when he turned around he noticed he had been hit with food leftovers.

Pupovac suspected that the food was thrown at him from a table at a nearby restaurant, the press release noted.

“This isn’t the first verbal or physical attack on leader of the SDSS and SNV, Milorad Pupovac, but it is the first one that included one of his closest party associates, Boris Milosevic. Considering that the attack occurred in the presence of a lot of people, and in a place that Pupovac and Milosevic frequent almost daily, it was not only reckless but also a potentially dangerous physical attack on them,” SNV said.

SNV said they believed that the goal of the attack was to openly show hate, publicly humiliate, and physically endanger Pupovac and Milosevic.

Considering the “political and media campaign against Pupovac and SDSS that has been going on for some time now”, and in particular over the past few weeks, SNV added that the attack “doesn’t come as a surprise because campaigns like that incite people not only to hate, but to commit violence against him and the institutions he heads, and in turn against the people he represents”.

SNV is the main organising body of ethnic Serbs in Croatia, and SDSS is the political party from which all three Serb ethnic minority MPs come. According to Croatia’s constitution, 8 seats in its 151-seat parliament are reserved for representatives of various ethnic minorities which are elected separately by minority voters, including three MPs representing ethnic Serbs.

Pupovac’s SDSS is currently aligned with the ruling centre-right coalition led by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) of Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

The state leadership, political parties and associations have all condemned the incident in the strongest terms.

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