Dear President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović,

On the eve of your official visit to Hungary, during which your host will be Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the initiative “Welcome” (which gathers a large number of organizations and volunteers who work with refugees who are passing through Croatia on daily basis) hereby invites you, during conversation with Prime Minister Orban, to highlight your concern about his policies directed against the human rights of both refugees and Hungarian citizens. It is especially important to direct the conversation with Prime Minister Orban to the following subjects: removal of the razor-wire fence on the borders with Croatia and Serbia as soon as possible; and the ending of repressive measures by his government.

With their example, the Croatian citizens have clearly shown how important is to have solidarity with people who are running away from wars and deep social injustices. Today, we can be proud on the fact that Croatia is not building fences; that Croatian police officers are not beating refugees, but helping them; that the domestic public and refugees are not intimidated by the army and that a large numbers of citizens have organized themselves, on their own initiative, and came together to help the refugees – informed by their own experience of war and deep economic inequalities, which forced many of their fellow citizens to leave the country. In this way, Croatia has an additional legitimacy to advocate – together with Croatian partners in the European Union – for a more humane approach to the refugee crisis, one which fully respects international human rights standards.

Unfortunately, Prime Minister Orban's policies are going in the diametrically opposite direction and that’s why the initiative “Welcome” is asking that you, on behalf of many Croatian citizens, use your authority to try to convince Prime Minister Orban to abandon his repressive policies and measures towards refugees, which are now part of Hungarian law. It is in the best interests of Croatia and the whole European Union to remove the fence on the border between Croatia and Hungary (as well as between Serbia and Hungary) as soon as possible.

The initiative is proposing that you engage in conversation with Prime Minister Orban, as a part of official Croatian foreign policy, about further possibilities for securing safe land and air corridors for refugees to travel through; about securing temporary protection status for refugees on all EU territory and, finally, about the initiative to ultimately start solving the armed conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria through discussion in the UN, which will result with concrete actions to stop these conflicts.

You, as president, have a huge responsibility not to be silent during your meeting with Prime Minister Orban about the problems that his policies are causing for the refugees and the European Union as a whole, and instead to talk about these issues openly and in a constructive manner to seek an end to current regulations.

Sincerely,

The initiative "Welcome"