Croatia has had a hate crime definition in its Criminal Code for 20 years. According to Zagreb Pride, police and courts still keep missing it.

On Sunday, October 11, International Coming Out Day, the Zagreb-based LGBTIQ group said it has documented 35 violent incidents against LGBTIQ people since 2021 that may amount to hate crimes. In more than half of them, something went wrong: the hate motive wasn’t recognised, or the attack wasn’t classified correctly in law, Croatian news agency Hina reported.

Their summary, as quoted by Index.hr: Croatian police and the judiciary “i dalje ne prepoznaju i ne procesuiraju na odgovarajući način zločine iz mržnje” — still don’t properly recognise or prosecute hate crimes.

What “going wrong” looks like

Zagreb Pride describes a few patterns:

  • Assault treated as a nuisance. In some cases, violence was handled as a misdemeanour against “public order and peace,” the same category as a noisy argument in the street, rather than as a crime.
  • The motive disappears. In other cases a criminal case did go ahead, but the homophobic or transphobic motive wasn’t recognised. That matters because under Croatian law a hate motive is an aggravating factor, so missing it can mean a lighter sentence.
  • Weak investigations and poor communication. The group also flagged problems with how effectively attacks are investigated and how survivors are treated, especially by police, who are usually the first people someone reports to.

Zagreb Pride didn’t publish an exact count of how many of the 35 cases went wrong in each way, so we’re sticking to what they said: more than half.

The €40 case Europe already ruled on

None of this is new to Strasbourg. In January 2021, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Sabalić v. Croatia, a case Zagreb Pride supported.

The applicant was attacked in a nightclub after telling a man she was a lesbian. The attacker was fined 300 kuna, about €40, in minor-offence proceedings for breaching public peace and order, ILGA-Europe explained at the time. The hate motive was never investigated, and Index.hr notes a later criminal prosecution failed because of that earlier minor-offence case.

The Court found Croatia had violated the European Convention on Human Rights’ ban on inhuman or degrading treatment, together with its ban on discrimination. It called the authorities’ response “particularly destructive of fundamental human rights.”

Zagreb Pride’s point this week is blunt: that ruling “nije dovela do promjene prakse policije i pravosuđa,” it said, as reported by Hina. It didn’t change how police and courts actually work.

Taking it back to the Council of Europe

When the European Court of Human Rights rules against a country, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers checks whether that country actually fixes the problem. That’s where Zagreb Pride is going next.

Together with Kuća ljudskih prava Zagreb (Human Rights House Zagreb), the group has submitted evidence to the Committee of Ministers showing that attacks on LGBTIQ people are still being misclassified as public-order offences, so the hate motive never gets investigated in criminal proceedings.

Their asks are simple enough to fit on a placard:

  • classify violent incidents correctly
  • recognise and investigate hate motives
  • give everyone equal protection under the law
  • apply the laws that already exist, consistently

The bigger picture

Croatia is in many ways one of the more settled places in the region for LGBTIQ people. Same-sex couples have had life partnerships for years, Zagreb Pride marched for the 25th time this June, and our state-of-rights explainer has more on where the law stands.

That’s exactly why this report lands. The gap here isn’t about what the law says. It’s about what happens at the police station on a Saturday night, and whether the person taking the report writes down why it happened.

If it happens to you

Zagreb Pride used Coming Out Day to make a direct offer: if you’ve experienced homophobic or transphobic violence, whether on the street, on public transport, in your neighbourhood, at school or at work, get in touch as soon as you can. They help with reporting, legal support and representation.

Reporting early, they say, is how institutional failures get caught before they derail a case. That’s not a guarantee of justice. But 35 documented cases, and a file now sitting with the Council of Europe, exist because people did exactly that.