Gouillon: Removal of Serbian tombstones in Croatia is the height of Serbophobia and a barbaric act

The Director of the Office for Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the Serbian Government, Arnaud Gouillon, has condemned the adoption of a new law in Croatia that enables the removal of Serbian tombstones erected after 1990.

In a video shared on social media, Gouillon responded to what he described as "an act of institutional discrimination," warning of its serious consequences.

Gouillon pointed out that the new Croatian law targets memorials honoring Serbian soldiers and civilian victims from the 1991–1995 war, or those inscribed in the Cyrillic script used by Serbs.

"Families of the deceased are now required to remove these monuments at their own expense within 30 days, or face fines of up to 5,000 euros. The fate of the memorials is decided by a state commission, with no clear criteria and no right to appeal. This is pure Serbophobia," Gouillon emphasized.

He stated that this represents a comprehensive attempt to erase memory, humiliate the dead, and systematically remove the traces of Serbian presence in present-day Croatia.

"These monuments are not symbols of hatred, but of loss, suffering, and resistance. While such discrimination against Serbs is carried out in plain sight of Europe, let us not forget that in 1995, Croatia ethnically cleansed a quarter of a million Serbs, and now it is trying to erase their memory, identity, and all traces they left behind. Serbia remembers its sons, its fathers, its dead," Gouillon concluded.