Thursday, June 11, 2015

Russia Slams Croatia for Converting Orth. People; Says Its Pressure Forced 30,000 to Become Cath.

Croatia's Foreign Ministry has rejected Russian claims that aggressive Croatian nationalism had forced about 30,000 Eastern Orthodox believers to switch to the Catholic religion in the last two decades, the Balkan Insight website reports today (June 11, 2015).

Marking the 70th anniversary of the victory over Germany in World War II, Russia's Foreign Ministry included the claim in an extensive report on what it calls neo-Nazism in Europe, the United States, and Canada, and its threat to human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

When analyzing Croatia, the Russian ministry states that "aggressive nationalism, ethnic and religious intolerance is directed primarily against the largest minority group, the [Orthodox] Serbs, whose number fell by two-thirds since 1991" -- when Croatia proclaimed its independence.

The Croatian Ministry said that the report on neo-Nazism in Croatia -- an ally of Hitler's Nazi Germany during World War II -- used unfounded data that had been selected to confirm earlier set conclusions.

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