Serb National Council and Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) leader, Milorad Pupovac, on Friday condemned a recent incident in which a man physically assaulted an underage boy in the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar. The police qualified the attack as motivated by hate.

According to media reports, a 30-year-old man, supporter of the Belgrade-based Partizan football club, assaulted the boy for wearing a mask with Croatian national insignia.

Speaking to the press, Pupovac said that assaulting a minor or an adult only for wearing a piece of clothing, “in this case a mask,” with insignia that someone did not like, “represents an alarming act of aggression, intolerance, and disrespect for diversity.”

On behalf of the SDSS, he apologised to the boy’s family, saying there was “no justification for the assault.”

He went on to criticise what he called “political pyromania in Vukovar and elsewhere”, saying a town like Vukovar can only be governed, and relations between local Serbs and Croats improved, through “a policy of inter-ethnic reconciliation.”

He said he was worried by the announcement by re-elected Vukovar Mayor Ivan Penava that minority schools would be abolished.

“They see a problem in that, not in themselves and their political pyromania, but in the guaranteed rights of national minorities, the right to education in their own language and alphabet, the nurturing of their own culture,” Pupovac said, adding he was concerned such a policy would lead to more violence among youth in the next four years.

Asked if the attack on the boy was the worst inter-ethnic incident in Vukovar to date, Pupovac said he would rather not categorise it, but that it was certainly awful and unacceptable, adding stricter penalties would not suffice and that instead, it was necessary to publicly condemn such incidents.