The House of Human Rights and all founding organizations express their horror at Saturday's violence against participants of the Gay Pride held in Split, which once again showed that in Croatia there is unacceptable tolerance towards violence and the violent expression of one's own views.
The event, which was supposed to be a place to commemorate the long and arduous struggle of the LBGT population for their rights and celebrate the acceptance of diversity in a democratic society, became a scene of violence, hatred and intolerance, primarily thanks to the inability of the MUP to secure the procession in an appropriate manner and to prevent thugs from illegally gathering on the waterfront in order to attack a peaceful and registered assemblyIt is incredible that 10,000 people gathered "spontaneously" without the police having any knowledge of it or the nature of such an unreported gathering, and that the police did not assess such a gathering as a high security risk for the participants in the procession.
What particularly disappoints us is the way in which laws are selectively applied to different groups of citizens. Let us recall that during peaceful protests More than 150 citizens were detained in Varšavska last summer, and more than 200 misdemeanor charges were filed because some of those detained received two different misdemeanor charges; in addition to disturbing public order and peace, they were also charged with conspiring to commit a misdemeanor.
In the case of explicit public violence against Gay Pride participants, completely different principles were applied; part of the thugs were not detained but "dislocated", a large part of those detained were released, and everything resulted in only a few criminal charges, all due to drug abuse; specifically marijuana.. All this indicates that public authorities, and especially their repressive apparatus, react differently and apply laws to different groups of protesters; those who are non-violent and fight for the public good end up with misdemeanor charges, movement restrictions and fines of 10,000 kuna, while violent people and those who publicly commit not only misdemeanors but also criminal acts through hate speech are released. In addition to all this The mayor of the city where all this is happening publicly justifies the violence by claiming that it is a Catholic city that has shown the gay pride participants what it thinks in this way..
Regardless of the attitudes that citizens, politicians, and police officers have towards the LGBT population, in a legally regulated country based on the values of tolerance and democracy, it is not possible to allow attitudes to be expressed through violence and hate speech. Precisely because there are still those for whom this is not clear in itself, there are legal regulations, primarily in the Criminal Code, that provide for prison sentences for such behavior.
We would like to see political platitudes about zero tolerance for violence, about a tolerant and European society, turn into a clear and quick action of sanctioning all those who participated in the violence against the members of the procession, as well as sanctioning and calling to account all those who, through their omissions, made it possible.
We therefore ask the relevant authorities to all who participated in physical violence and hate speech are sanctioned in accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Code, Article 174: Racial and other discrimination, as well as Article 331. Violent behavior as a form of hate crime.
The article was taken from the website of the House of Human Rights.
