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Balkan Insight (18 April 2018)

A parliamentary delegation from Zagreb cancelled the rest of its visit on Wednesday after Seselj trampled on the Croatian flag inside the Serbian parliament, then shouted insults at the delegation, calling them ‘Ustasa’ (Croatian fascists).

“Despite a very good start to the official visit… because of this act that assaults the dignity of Croatia, we have cancelled the visit,” the Croatian parliament said a press release sent to BIRN.

The delegation was supposed to meet Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Prime Minister Ana Brnabic on Thursday.

Serbian parliament speaker Maja Gojkovic released a statement condemning the “brutal attempt by the MP Vojislav Seselj to threaten the dignity of the National Assembly of Serbia and the delegation from the parliament of Croatia”.

“The disrespect towards Croatia’s state symbols... cannot be allowed, and also insults the Serbian people, who take pride in a tradition of hospitality,” Gojkovic said.

But Seselj’s Serbian Radical Party released a statement boasting about the incident, saying that “five members of security were unable to take the banner and the flag” from Seselj and another Radical Party MP.

Incidents involving the Radicals have recently increased, after NGOs and opposition politicians started pointing out that Seselj’s recent war crimes sentence legally disqualifies him from serving as MP.

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals on April 11 sentenced Seselj in absentia to ten years in prison for inciting crimes with nationalist speeches in the Vojvodina region of Serbia during the war in 1992.

Serbian law clearly states that an MP’s term ends if he or she is given a non-suspended prison sentence of six months or more, but Seselj has insisted that he will not resign.

https://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/croatian-parliamentary-delegation-leaves-serbia-after-seselj-incident-04-18-2018