PUNKERS BEATEN UP BY THE POLICE

AIM Zagreb, November 25, 1995

It is usually said that coincidence is possible only twice, and that the third, the fourth or the fifth time something happens, there is no coincidence, but it is the matter of a plan, a project or a general standpoint. In this sense, a few October events indicate that things are not going well for the young people in Croatia, and that for quite some time, nothing happened by pure accident. Closing down of elite schools and some time after that, banishment of the best professors (the case of Zlatko Seselj, head and professor of the Classic High-School) were just an introduction into later developments. The arrest of the young men who have scribbled all over a poster of the ruling Croat Democratic Community (HDZ) and public beating up of the so-called Bad Blue Boys (fans of the Dinamo football team) in central Zagreb Jelacic square at the moment Tudjman, in the ecstasy of his growling, put an equation mark between the "Dinamo" fans and "Serb agents" all belong to the same set of causes and results. And last but in no way the least, there is the case of joint police ravaging in Samobor against children between 14 and 17, when general bloodshed was avoided by mere chance.

With no doubt, this latest event, the so-called Samobor case, is the most significant one on the scale of humiliation the young generation experienced, which shed the first serious doubt about the role of police in a civic society. This was, namely, the first event since the HDZ is in power that horrified mums and dads, and introduced fear into their parental hearts. What will in fact happen to their children if the police will beat up everyone who wears an earring, a t-shirt bearing the sign of the rock band "Sex Pistols", red pants and green hair? And what is even more dangerous, the wish of the authorities to paint with blood the environment in which young people must live is felt in all these instances.

The Samobor picnic began on the eve of All Saints' Day, when a concert of several rock & noise bands - "NULA", "BERMAHT", "DIK' O' BRAZI", "WASSER GIHT" and others - was about to begin in a bowling-alley club about 21.00 h. Since such performances are becoming rare in Croatia, several hundred thousand young punk boys and girls gathered in Samobor that evening from all parts of our state, appropriately dressed (black leather jackets, stiff military boots etc.) and with appropriate haircuts.

Everything would have ended in perfect order, if it were not for the police, the concert would have ended and everyone would have gone safely to their respective homes. But, the concert had not even begun, because according to the statement of the owner of the bowling-alley club Stjepan Husta, the neighbours got frightened of possible disturbance of the peace and called the police. As the authorities had not been notified about the concert, this was the alleged reason for the police to ban the concert. A few days prior to the incident, a concert of a pop-dance star was held although the police had not been informed about it either, but the police did not feel the urge to intervene. In the Samobor police station, an hour or two before the beginning of the concert, they had already been informed that the savage youngsters had started breaking everything around the town, and so they did not hesitate to call in the notorious "ALPHA"'s - combat forces of the Croat police. What was hppening in the Club at the time?

Trouble began when two policemen broke the news to the enraptured youngsters that there would be no concert. At first the policemen used just their truncheons, and then threw a young girl on to the ground and started kicking her. The others tried to pull her out from underneath the feet of the infuriated forces of law and order. "Give us our money back", and "Fascists" - the gathered punkers yelled. This was sufficient for the police to feel threatened and start firing their guns in the air and the ground. The young punkers and their girl-friends fled outdoors, but, alas, ran straight into the arms of a special police corps. They dispersed in all directions hoping to save their heads. But, the police also spread all over the city. Then the chase began all over the city, members of the "ALPHA" on one, and the children on the other side who fled to the centre of the town. A part of them gathered at the corner near the store called "Sismis" (Bat), the others ran towards the bus station, and the third part, the one who knew all the secret alleys of Samobor, managed to avoid what took place soon after that.

The owner of the store says that young men and girls entered his store and bought sandwiches. They hardly had time to bite into them when suddenly several vehicles of special police units appeared. They got out of the cars nad started chasing the youngsters by all possible means. They forced several tens of children to lie down on the pavements, ordered them to put their hands above their heads and started beating them on the heads, backs, kidneys, ribs, wherever they reached. Young passers-by who had happened to be in the store wishing to buy something also got their share. A 15-year old girl was among them, whose head a policeman beat against the wall until he spilt enough of her blood leaving visible marks there.

Youngters lying on the ground were ordered to be silent, because for any scream or movement they were kicked in their ribs. Even older people who reproached the policemen for their behavior just barely escaped beating. A professor of the local secondary school happened to be near the store. She recognized a student of hers among the clobbered the youngsters, and a policeman she knew who was clobbering him.

"Policemen stood above the heads of the children (lying on the ground). Some of them mercilessly beat up the chidren, kicked them, pushed them with their truncheons and guarded them with machine-guns and puistols (...) I asked them why they were doing it, and one of the policeman (the one she knew) yelled at me cursing terribly - 'Get out of here, do you want to get a beating too, you are a drug addict just like they are, you need a beer and a needle to come to your senses'" - this is what professor Vlatka Lamot stated concerning the "Samobor operation", as Novi List journal carried it.

At the same time, a worried parent arrived and asked about his son: "You want your son?! Go to the police station to look for him, you just might find him cut to pieces". Soon after that, they shoved the group in front of the store into police vans and took them to the police station.

The bloody ordeal reached its climax at the bus station where most of the children tried to run away, since majority of them were not from Samobor and wished to leave the town. But, this was a strategic mistake, because the police blocked all traffic until midnight, so no bus left the station. They circled around the town in their police vehicles in the attempt to catch more hooligans registered as drug addicts in policemen's minds, or rather people who were abnormal. They searched for the "abnormals" everywhere, in cafes near by for instance. In their search they happened to break into a party orgnized on the occasion of Halloween, with a lot of masked young people. An armed policeman asked whether there were any of the "abnormals" among them. All gaudy and in crazy costumes, those present answered laughing: "No, can't you see, we are all normal here".

At the station, members of the special units also manifested their combat readiness and attacked the first people they happened to come across. Two lads from a place close to Samobor were the first to get the beating. After beating with truncheons, kicking, slapping and shoving gun barrels in their mouths, the policemen forced them to lie on the ground and treaded on them. The girls who were in their company experienced something similar. After slapping them on the face, the police took them to the police station. And they continued beating them up over there. Those who remained silent got less beating, and who did not, got more. One of the young men who did not remain silent, remembers what happened at the police station: "To my question concerning the reason for my arrest, they dragged me into a corridor on the side where more policemen stood. They started throwing me from one to the other like a ball. They threw me five times to the ground and hit me. In the end a member of the special units grabbed me and slapped me on the face".

The outcome of the police amok was 104 arrested and seven seriously injured teenagers. Among those who were not injured were sons of Drazen Budisa and Vladimir Seks, both punkers. "I have not been beaten up, but I will never forget that night. It was an enormous humiliation for all of us", recently Domagoj, son of Vice-Chairman of the Assembly V. Seks, said for the Arena journal. While the police were chasing them, young Seks was struck by an idea that he could show them his identity card, but his smart friends prevented him from doing it, because they were not sure whether the police would check anyone's identification papers, or just beat up without a word. They missed the trouble near the store by a hair's breadth, because they saw what was happening from a distance and escaped in the direction of the cemetery. But, the policemen saw them and fired their guns through corn fields. Fortunately, noone of them was hurt, becaue the boys crawled to the monastery where they stayed till the next day.

The Samobor case of orgies of special police units reveals many things linked to the police itself, but the young generation in general as well. Concerning police, several deformations are notable.

In the first place, it is the fact that for the police, anyone dressed differently is a drug addict. According to witnesses, for instance, when armed policemen entered the bowling alley club, they addressed those present with the following words: "We'll crush you to pieces, you gang of junkies!" As the campaign in the media in Croatia against all kinds of opiates (both mild and heavy ones) has reached such degree of paranoia that the police obviously believes that all means are permisseble for the sake of "high causes" - beating up of children in the middle of the street, to say all kinds of abuses to a serious lady, and to jeopardize a series of civil rights.

It also proves that in this state noone really knows, neither young or old, what their rights are and what are the limitations of police authorizations. Since liberalism and individual rights have a bad reputation in Croatia, the rights of the people to ask about their rights have reached the very bottom of helplessness. And it is obvious that this suits everyone else.

As concerning the youth, what became clear in the whole story is the fact that it has no place to spend its free time in, and that the little space that could be theirs has been closed down by the state or changed its purpose for the sake of a financially more profitable one. Those who do not wish to accept rules of behavior prescribed by the state, will experience what the children experienced in Samobor.

And yet, the police does not wish to give up. It has its own vision of what happened the other night. According to the official assessment, the police is convinced that safety of the policemen was seriously threatened, so in order to defend themselves, wretched and powerless as they are, they were forced to shoot six bullets in the air from automatic rifles. Policemen all share the opinion that the town was threatened by a raid of young punkers who had allegedly intended to demolish the town. The police is resentful at the attempt to lay all the blame on it, because they say, "in such a crowd all kinds of injuries are possible". A pretext for all the commotion they caused, the policemen found in the fact that a significant part of the youngsters were drunk, and they say that the stories about cracked heads, broken ribs, bruises on the heads and black-and-blue marks on the backs are exaggerated, and indeed, even invented. But, some of the parents do not share their opinion and have therefore sued the police. And the police, on its part, has sued the owner of the bowling alley club for disobeying the regulations.

At a discussion organized by the HHO, Slobodan Budak, President of the Croat Legal Centre, said that the decision of the police to "ban the concert because the police was not notified in advance is quite dubious (...) because the Law on Public Gatherings requires announcement only of those gatherings of citizens held in the open". If Budak is to be believed, the complaint of the police against the owner of the bowling alley club is dubious.

Court ending of this shameful tumult depends neither on the police any more, nor on complaints of the citizens, because this is not just one of those cases of minor importance. It is a case which implies that Croatia is a police state. And if that is correct, and there are reasons to believe it is, the solution will be found only in the next elections.

ALEN ANIC