Cicak: I Invite Students In Zagreb To Contact Me

Text

Croatian Helsinki Committee vice president offers his services to the Faculty of Philosophy students in Zagreb.

After the Zadar Faculty of Philosophy ended the bloc with the mediation of the Croatian Helsinki Committee (HHO), Ivan Zvonimir Cicak, the committee’s vice president, points out that it was high time for the goals to be realised. He invited the students of the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb to jointly adopt a strategy which would resolve the matter in a positive way for all the students.

- I invite Zagreb students to try and find a solution together. I am available to them and think it is high time for further steps to be taken. Surely, everyone has had enough and we believe they care for the situation to move from a standstill – Cicak told us.

Cicak pointed out on Tuesday in Zadar that he was presented with 500 signatures of Zadar University students, requesting the bloc of the faculty to be lifted. He said that the HHO was only a mediator between the students and the minister, that politics “has nothing to do with this situation” and that temporarily unblocking the University, they have a strategy for later, if some of their demands are not met in due time.

He added that talking to Zadar students, he concluded that they were mostly revolted with the fact that Croatian Education Minister Dragan Primorac did not play a part of the people`s man – faced them and just talked to them. They set out for Zadar as soon as they were contacted by the students who requested their intervention, because security guards showed up at the entrance to the faculty.

- The students asked us for help because of the measures which were introduced at the faculty, i.e. the surveillance of security guards. When I arrived in front of the University, I was mad as hell, because of the way these security guards acted, more so because they did not allow reporters to do their job. We waited like fools for half an hour and as the rector intervened, we were allowed inside. After all that, we managed to strike a deal in half an hour and offered to be mediators between the students and the professors. I then called Minister Primorac and it was arranged for a work group to be formed, which must react a joint decision and define its goals. The students adopted the ban to be lifted – Ivan Zvonimir Cicak told us.

The decision of the Zagreb Faculty of Philosophy students is next: will they accept the HHO mediation. Ivan Zvonimir Cicak said that if he is invited, he would “again ring Minister Primorac” and start the negotiations.