I am a woman from Iran. I just wanted to go to Slovenia, but the police caught me on the way and they were beating me badly on my legs and the whole body. The police took all my money, 500 euros, and put inside of their pockets. They took all our mobiles, they took my son’s laptop, they slapped me on my mouth and everywhere. They acted like animals, they are not humans. I am 47 years old and had my child with me, a son, 14-years old. They also hit my son, they slapped him into his face.
The woman explained that she, her son and 13 other people walked for seven days from Velika Kladuša to Croatia and wanted cross further to Slovenia to apply for asylum there. When the whole group was walking in the Croatian inner land, close to the road E65 nearby Perjasica at around 1am, they were caught by the Croatian police. The officers talked to the whole group politely, questioned them about their nationality and about their reasons for entering Croatia. Afterwards the police stole all mobile phones, and drove them to Croatia where the group was handed over to the Croatian border police for their deportation back to Bosnia. No one from the group was taken to a police station and enabled access to asylum procedures in Slovenia or Croatia, although some of them clearly stated that they wanted to apply for asylum.
During the transportation to the Bosnian border, a Croatian police officer was driving fast and was turning from one side to another, so that people inside were falling from their seats. The border police drove the whole group to the Bosnian border, in a forest about 10 km from the makeshift camp in Velika Kladuša. The police told them to get out of the car, three people at a time. According to the respondent, the police stole everyone’s money and all their possessions, including 500 euros from her, which was her last money, as well as her son’s laptop. The officers took between 50 and 100 euros from each of the other people in the group. After searching everyone’s bodies, and robbing them, two police officers stood by the car and four others created a row a few meters from the car.
Two police men were standing in front and other four were standing by the border, if we want to run somewhere. You know, one guy, he wanted to run. But they pick him up from his back and threw him down and were beating him badly. And other three men who wanted to run away, they sent a dog to chase them, so they stopped.
The police told them to go back to Bosnia, but once they started walking from the car, the police started physically attacking them with metal sticks and electroschock weapons, including the women and children.
They were hitting us and laughing at our backs. They had both sticks and electric sticks. One police man hit me that I fall on the ground, and after he was hitting me by a baton, and after every hit he was laughing: “Ha, ha, ha, ha!”. After, he slapped me into my mouth. He also slapped my son. One man was electric shocked into his body. … When we were walking back, we stopped, and all were crying together for few minutes because it was very hard time for us. And after, we went back to the camp [in Velika Kladuša].
The man who was beating the most, he was very thin and small face, little hair, and moustache, and his teeth were big outside of his mouth. And he was beating and laughing. He had a normal police uniform, blue shirt.
