Activists fight for public interest

After the organized vigil in Varšavska street in Zagreb to prevent the works on the access ramp for the underground garage of the Hoto Centre, launched last week, last night (Wednesday, February 10) saw the biggest protest against the devastation of the pedestrian zone in the street. In spite of bad weather and heavy snow, more than 4,000 people gathered to protest the practice to put private before public interest.

The protesters reiterated the main reasons for the demands to stop all works in Varšavska, including the fact that Hoto Group secured the permits for a „Cvjetni prolaz“ project, which was reworked and renamed into „Cvjetni“, which means that investors were using permits issued to a non-existent project.

The protesters demanded the immediate resignation of Mayor Milan Bandic who continues with his unconditional support to the project pushed by Tomo Horvatincic, and who called the protesters, just hours before the protests, “people stuck in the Middle ages”.

City Council member Vera Petrinjak Šimek announced that she intended to ask Bandic, at today’s session of the City Council, about the 2008 decision that the Hoto Project was a matter of public interest, adding that “…there was no single comma or full-stop in it that says public interest”.

The organizers of the protests, Pravo na Grad and Zelena Akcija associations, uncovered the “Trojan Horse”, a five metre high and seven metre long statue, that they presented to the City Administration as a symbol of all swindles and deception related to the project.

„Why the Trojan horse? Because they try to mask the Trojan horse of private interests under the mask of public interest. The mayor doesn’t work like a horse for the citizens every day. In fact, with this project, he proves to be a Trojan horse that is working against their interests”, Tomislav Tomaševic, the president of the Zelena Akcija environmental association said.

The whole atmosphere and the wish of the citizens to have a say in the development of the city show that this and similar private projects will not pass, and if they are pushed by force, there will be resistance. We should believe that other self-styled “development” projects will face a dilemma – push public interests aside and spend millions on delays, or give up on time to allow the public space to remain public.

“It is not the space alone we defend. We actually defend the institutions that come out of this process devastated. We have to hold a firm, organized position, since they take their power from our lack of organization”, said Teodor Celakoski on the behalf of Pravo na Grad and invited the citizens to join the Human Wall for Varšavska again.

Several hours later, around 03:00 o’clock, the anti-riot police unit entered Varšavska street. In the raid that lasted for two and a half hours, 23 activists were arrested, including Tomislav Tomaševic and popular actress Urša Raukar. After that, the police removed the shipping containers used by the vigil to block the street and demolished the Trojan horse.

“While cranes lifted the containers on lorries, another 80 activists came to the scene and sat down on all exists to prevent the lorries from leaving”, Srdan Dvornik reports for Zamirzine, adding that at 5:30, the police broke the activists cordon and opened the way for the lorries.

“We believe that the decision to send the anti-riot police for a communal misdemeanour means that the state has taken the side of the corrupt City administration”, Teodor Celakoski said.

The latest available information was that six of the 23 arrested activists were let go by the police, and the other 16 were kept for questioning.

Civic associations and activists have been fighting the plans of entrepreneur Tomo Horvatincic and his project to build the “lifestyle” HOTO Centre, for which purposes the City of Zagreb approved plans to build an access ramp for the underground garage through Varšavska Street, in down-town Zagreb, under the excuse that it was indisputably in the public interest.

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