Zagreb Pride: Croatian police and courts still fail to recognise anti-LGBTIQ hate crimes

Croatia’s police and judiciary still fail to recognise and properly prosecute hate crimes against LGBTIQ people, Zagreb Pride warned on Sunday, despite a European Court of Human Rights judgment against the country in the case of Sabalić v. Croatia.

Zagreb Pride, the Croatian capital’s main LGBTIQ rights organisation and the organiser of its annual Pride march, says it has documented 35 violent incidents against the LGBTIQ community since 2021 that could amount to criminal offences such as violent conduct or other hate-related crimes. In more than half of them, it found problems with how the authorities identified the hate motive and how they legally classified the incident.

Violence is often treated merely as a misdemeanour against public order rather than as a criminal offence, the organisation says. Even when a criminal case is brought, the hate motive is frequently left out, so homophobia and transphobia never count as the aggravating circumstance the law provides for, and sentences end up lighter.

The group also reports ineffective investigations and poor communication with survivors of homophobic and transphobic violence. The failures occur at every stage of criminal proceedings, it says, and especially in the work of the police, usually the first place where violence is reported.

A Strasbourg ruling that changed little

Zagreb Pride says it has been raising the problem for 20 years, ever since Croatia wrote a definition of hate crime into its Criminal Code. In Sabalić v. Croatia, a case in which Zagreb Pride provided legal support, the European Court of Human Rights found that Croatia had violated the European Convention on Human Rights. Even that judgment, the organisation says, has not corrected the practice of Croatian police and courts.

Together with the Human Rights House Zagreb, Zagreb Pride recently filed a submission to the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, which supervises the enforcement of the court’s judgments, with evidence that attacks on LGBTIQ people are still wrongly classified as public-order offences and that the hate motive goes unexamined in criminal proceedings.

“No one should have to risk their own safety to live openly. Everyone in Croatia must have equal legal protection,” the organisation said.

Marking International Coming Out Day on 11 October, Zagreb Pride urged LGBTIQ people who have experienced homophobic or transphobic violence, on the street, on public transport, in their neighbourhood, at school or at work, to contact it as early as possible. It offers help with reporting, legal support and representation.

Source: zagreb-pride.net, insajder.net. English adaptation: gay-serbia.com.