I am appealing to the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg because I have exhausted the legal means available to me in Croatia. In particular, I am appealing against the charge of insult by Slobodan Vugrinec, the former mayor of Motovun. I am also appealing against Croatian courts that help the likes of Vugrinec in political repression against those who criticize their policies. Libel and insult cases have been one of the favorite weapons of politicians, and they have been victorious all too often.

In 2008 and 2009, Vugrinec took me to court first for libel and then for insult. In 2009 he also arranged yet another libel case against me by the Municipality of Motovun. All this was done in preparation for the municipal elections in 2009.

Vugrinec and the Motovun Municipality lost the libel cases, but he won the insult case at the Municipal Court in Pazin in 2010. All of us appealed to the Regional Court in Pula, but the original decision was upheld in 2011. Then I appealed to the Constitutional Court in Zagreb, and the original decision was upheld once again in 2014. I learned about it only a few days ago. Thus my appeal to the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

In 2009 I likened Vugrinec to a cockroach while I was talking at a gathering of green activists about his undemocratic ways. It was a metaphor for working in the dark and behind closed doors, as I put it on that occasion. Of course, the metaphor had no effect on the municipal elections in 2009, when Vugrinec was elected mayor of Motovun for the third time in a row. Surprisingly, neither the meaning nor the effect of the metaphor were taken into consideration by the Croatian courts.

Now, Vugrinec took me to court because I was one of the outspoken critics of golf development in Istria and the rest of Croatia at the time. The development was a part of the worldwide real estate boom in the early years of the new millennium, and it concerned a large number of apartments and villas rather than golf as such. The development was not sustainable, but the political hierarchy from Istria to Zagreb was very much behind it. Ivan Jakovčić, the former governor of Istria, worked closely with the former prime minister, Ivo Sanader, to promote golf. As a picturesque medieval town, Motovun was to offer one of more than sixty golf courses across the country. Vugrinec chose the court as an instrument of political repression against me, and it can be safely assumed that he had all the political backing for it all the way to the top of the hierarchy.

Vugrinec got legal help from the office of Goran Veljović in Pula. The same office represented him personally, the municipality, and the investor in Motovun golf. The same office represented many other golf investors at the time, and it was close to the governor and his political party. In addition, Veljović’s office wrote the golf law that Sanader rammed through the Croatian parliament. It was a law of eminent domain, which treated golf as an activity of national interest, no less.

The judge selected to officiate in this case was Denis Hek from the Municipal Court in Pazin. He was known to be very close to the Istrian Democratic Assembly, the governor’s party. Again, the governor and his party were enthusiastic supporters of golf on the Istrian peninsula, where more than twenty golf courses were planned at the time. Hek was at their disposal for cases like those lodged against me.

Over the years, I learned that the ultimate reason for political support of golf development across Istria and Croatia as a whole had roots in corruption and organized crime going all the way to the top of the political hierarchy once again. Politicians and their friends were to become investors in golf by means of foreign investment companies like the one that operated in Motovun at the time. It was a money-laundering scheme, whereby money illegally deposited in foreign banks would be invested in golf development. The politicians used their influence in Croatia to prepare the paperwork for the profitable endeavor. With strong political ties in Austria, the Croatian politicians had Austrian banks at their disposal, as well.

In short, I am a victim of political repression with corruption and organized crime in the background. As many had noticed before the real estate boom subsided in 2008, I was in real danger for my opposition to unsustainable golf development. If the barrage of court cases failed to shut me up, other measures would have been used. Luckily for me, the real estate boom came to its end in 2008, the very year Vugrinec had lodged his first court case against me.

In support of these claims, I offer a selection of pieces from my Residua (www.residua.org). Accumulated over seven years, this testimony has turned into a veritable book. Arranged chronologically, the selected pieces offer a lot of detail to all my claims. I cannot but hope that the whole book will be of value to the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. This applies not only in my struggle with Vugrinec, though. When it comes to human rights, courts in Croatia need an overhaul. And soon.