Interior Minister Katarina Kresal and Human Rights Ombudsman dr. Zdenka Cebasek - Travnik focused on the erased, the police and complaints against police work, as they met on Friday, 23. 1. 2009.

Kresal highlighted as priorities the reinstating of the status of the erased - some 18,000 people from the former Yugoslavia removed from the permanent residence registry in 1992 - and resolving the status of asylum seekers.

The ombudsman said after the meeting that the pair had agreed that human rights were still being violated. The ministry is aware of that and is already taking the necessary measures, she added.

Kresal assured the ombudsman that human rights were very high on the ministry's agenda. She added that the ministry had already started working on some projects, for example the erased and asylum seekers. It has also started tackling the issue of private security firms.

According to dr. Cebasek - Travnik, human rights were especially violated in procedures against police officers, when complaints were not appropriately handled and often rejected without grounds.

Dr. Cebasek - Travnik commended the ministry's intention to provide more exact data on the number of erased (Kresal said on Thursday that the number 24,000 was more realistic). However, the ombudsman's office will give final opinion in the end, she added.

Regarding the work of the police, dr. Cebasek - Travnik said that the decisions they issued were often too vague. She also pointed to human rights violations in police cells.

Dr. Cebasek - Travnik also said that the ombudsman's office had not received any complaints about police work from the Roma last year, and the pair agreed that this was the result of police training.

Kresal said that the ministry was planning to introduce centralised supervision over the work of the police.

The pair also touched on the protection of victims in domestic violence cases, with Kresal presenting some additional measures that the ministry is planning to introduce.