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As opposed to earlier years when cases of violence, intolerance and hate speech directed towards Serbs were mostly registered in the areas of refugees return, it is noticeable that from 2012 on, such cases have spread throughout Croatia. What significantly contributed to this trend, which is increasingly assuming revisi¬onist right-wing features, was the socio-political context which became increasingly radicalized since the coming to power of the coalition led by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Croatia’s accession to the European Union.A new awakening of nationalist euphoria, as well as the mobili¬sation of a part of the veterans’ population, began with the cu¬rrent government’s decision to initiate full implementation of the Law on the use of languages and letters of national minorities in the Republic of Croatia, which stipulates the equal use of mi¬nority language in communities where minorities make up more than 33 percent of population. Placement of the first bilingual plaques on state institutions in Vukovar in early 2013, caused re¬sistance of the veterans’ association Headquarter for Defence of Croatian Vukovar. The Vukovar veterans’ protest, which turned into a protest against the rights of Serbs, eventually brought on an increased level of hate speech and of ethnic intolerance in public space.
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The analysis that follows certainly calls into question the soundness of a generalized assessment made by the Croatian authorities of the years 2011 and 2012, specifi cally that “[ ... ] in the Re public of Croatia there is no increased threat to members of national minorities” and that “[ ... ] there were no identifi ed elements which would indicate that there is organized violence against members of ethnic minorities, but in all cases individual incidents were recorded, which do not indicate a threat to national minorities in a certain area or during a certain time period.” Specifi cally, during 2012 the caucus of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS ) in the Croatian Parliament and the Serb National Council (SNV) received information about an increased number of cases of ethnically motivated violence and intolerance towards members of the Serb community and their institutions.
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The Croatian Constitutional Act on the Rights of National Minorities, adopted in 2002 with a two-thirds majority of all MPs, stipulates special rights and freedoms of persons belonging to national minorities in order to enable their active and effective participation in public affairs and public life at all levels. Minorities in Croatia are thus guaranteed the right to proportional representation in the state administration, police and judicial bodies. This right is to be exercised using population fi gures from offi cial census results. According to the latest 2011 census, minorities comprise 7.67%, and Serbs 4.36%, of the total population of Croatia.
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