First Asylum Granted in Croatia

16 November 2006

According to a report released earlier today, the Ministry of Interior adopted a decision to grant asylum to a seeker, for the first time in Croatia. Asylum was granted to a female Sudanese national who sought asylum on basis of violation of religious freedoms and sexual mutilation.

Since the Law on Asylum was enacted in 2004, over 600 requests were submitted, but none of them was approved until now. This decision, therefore, points out at certain changes in policies or, at least, their implementation.

The H-alter portal reports that Gordan Bosanac from the Centre for Peace Studies, organization involved in asylum related issues for some time, greeted this decision. However, Bosanac believes that the issue of why the other seekers didn�t meet the criteria remains open.

CMS suspects that the decision was related to the new Draft-Law on Asylum, recently presented by the Government, i.e. to create a political situation in which nobody would ask why no request for asylum was approved before.