Report on the Performance of Activities of the National Preventive Mechanism for 2017 Ombudswoman notified the State Attorney General, Croatian Parliament and the public about the information she collected during this, but also previously conducted procedures. We would like to mention that the Ombudswoman and the MoI are in regular communication and that the Ministry provides replies and responds to all inquiries in a timely manner. However, in terms of content they are often quite inadequate, generic, and sometimes, like in the case of the complaint we described earlier, even misleading, obviously in an attempt to cover the real conduct and obstruct the activity of the Ombudswoman in accordance with legal authority. Also, when the highest ranking officials of the MoI publicly accuse the Ombudswoman by saying that these issues should not be communicated with the public, because this is not in line with the political priorities of the RC, this is a direct pressure imposed by the executive power on the work of an independent national human rights institution. Namely, Articles 19 and 27 of the Act on the Ombudsman stipulate that the Ombudsman informs the Croatian Parliament and the public about the perceived and established cases of violation of human rights and freedoms, and about the cases of major violation or threat to human rights or failure to take measures in accordance with the recommendations. In conclusion, reduction of migration pressure cannot be expected in the near future because the international community has not adequately responded to the causes of migration, which are truly complex, and among others, involve numerous wars and conflicts on the African and Asian continent, as well as long-term insecurity, poverty and fear. The characteristic of all countries to which the migrants arrive, be it transit or destination countries, is reluctance to accept them. This fear is probably also conditioned by the EU's slowness in migration management, as well as by the proposed solutions, which obviously many countries have no confidence in, especially in relation to the proposed measures for unburdening the countries of entry affected by increased irregular entries and applications for international protection, and which, thus far, have not proven effective. Therefore, the majority of countries resort to stricter state border control, however, this does not really slow down migrants on their way to destination countries, but it does put them in the hands of smugglers and traffickers to a much higher extent. RETURN MEASURES IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE FA IN 2017 decision on return 3,107 control and a large number of police officers engaged in its protection, data on the number decision on restricting the freedom of movement 785 decision on expulsion 2,538 Despite increased state border of applicants and irregular migrants in the RC in 2017 does illegal stay, including crossing the border illegally 5,512 not differ significantly from the ones in 2016. In the RC, 5,512 persons were apprehended in irregular stay, whereas 1,887 applied for international protection, which shows that 46

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