ZAGREB, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) -- A total of 11 people have been arrested for unlawful conduct during and after the anti-fascist protests on Sunday in Rijeka and Zadar, the third- and fifth-largest cities in Croatia respectively, Croatian Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said on Monday.
The arrested included nine in Rijeka and two in Zadar, Bozinovic said.
Around 1,000 people participated in the march in Rijeka on Sunday to protest what they described as growing far-right and fascist tendencies in the country, while several hundred joined the protest in Zadar. In addition, demonstrations were also held on Sunday in Zagreb and Pula, the seventh-largest city in the country.
According to the Rijeka police, before the protest began, about 30 young people, mostly masked, verbally attacked the marchers and threw firecrackers at them, and after the march ended, masked men dressed in black threw flares at the marchers. While in Zadar, two men in black threw balloons filled with red liquid at the gathered protesters and at one point there was a scuffle with the police.
Meanwhile, Bozinovic rejected claims by organizers from Rijeka that the police did not do enough to ensure the safety of the protesters.
"The way the police act, the model of how they do things is always a matter of their tactics. If they were not doing their job, then there certainly would not be nine arrests (in Rijeka)," he said.
The nationwide protests on Sunday were organized in response to a recent wave of extremist incidents targeting ethnic minorities and cultural organizations. A rise in far-right cultural activities has prompted growing public concern about a potential resurgence of fascism in Croatia. ■