Gays and lesbians gather for the first Gay Pride parade in Zagreb, Croatia, to denounce discrimination against homosexuals.
Thursday, Jul. 18, 2002
Amid tight security, more than 200 people gathered together on 29 June in the Croatian capital of Zagreb for the first gay pride parade in the country's history. With the goal of contributing to Croatia's social acceptance of homosexual, bisexual, and transsexual people, and calling on citizens to oppose all forms of discrimination, Zagreb Gay Pride 2002 was indeed a historic moment.
Organized by two nongovernmental organizations — Iskorak, or Coming Out, and Kontra, a lesbian group from Zagreb — participants, which included a handful of supportive heterosexuals, started their march through the city center just before noon. But police were on the alert, with as many security guards as parade participants. The exact date of the parade was not released until 10 days prior to the event because of threats to the organizers made by skinheads and football fans who are loath to see this Balkan country come out of the closet.
Carrying banners that read "Our Rights Are Human Rights" and "Against Homophobia and Patriarchy," the participants marched through the city past onlookers who offered a mixture of applause and jeers. For many of the participants, the short 30-minute parade and the violence and insults that followed it seemed much longer.
Ruth Augustus, a 61-year-old nun from London, stood waiting in Zrinjevac Park with a statuette of the Virgin Mary and a list of insults before the parade was set to begin. With a tight grip on the Virgin, Augustus shouted at the parade as it passed by: "You're dirty pigs," "stupid faggots," "carriers of AIDS infected seed," and on and on until the police suggested she spend the afternoon in the jailhouse instead.
During the parade, skinheads threw eggs, ashtrays, and glass bottles, but there were no major incidents and no physical clashes. However, once the parade ended and the police and people dispersed, the real problems began. More than 15 people were beaten after the parade, many of them outside the art.net.club Mama and another similar downtown club where the parades were organized. Police arrested 27 people. In addition, the parade's host, president of the Forum 21 media association Drago Pilsel, said that the parade's original host, theater director Mario Kovac, had been badly beaten just before the parade.
On 1 July, the parade organizers held a press conference at which they announced they would press charges against the unidentified people responsible for beating at least 15 people at the parade, and urged the police to find the perpetrators as soon as possible. Kontra's president, Sanja Juras, said that while police had provided good security during the parade, most of the forces dispersed after the event, leaving some critical spots in the city unprotected. Helsinki Committee Executive Director Tin Gazivoda blamed the Interior Ministry for the violence that erupted, saying that Croatian police fail to treat the issue of skinheads and other extremist groups seriously because they do not link them with organized violence. "It is a small step from inflammatory language to violence, and the incumbent authorities are responsible because they lack the courage to punish violence, xenophobia, and all forms of extremism," said Gazivoda.
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Iskorak's president, Dorino Manzin, used the opportunity to plead with state officials to endorse the group's initiative for the adoption of legislation that would abolish the discrimination of sexual minorities in all areas of life. Kontra's Juras also presented several of the lesbian group's initiatives aimed at amending the constitution and laws on labor, health, family, and higher education in order to prevent discrimination against homosexual, bisexual, and transsexual people and to accept them as equal citizens.
The media reacted variously to the parade. Croatian Television failed to make it clear that extremists, not everyday citizens, were responsible for the violence during and after the parade, and all media outlets neglected to mention that many heterosexuals joined the parade in a show of support. But the country's official Roman Catholic newspaper, Glas Koncila went over the edge with its criticism of the event.
A week after the parade, the newspaper published an editorial criticizing not only the parade, but also the Croatian media. According to the paper, the parade "offended Croatian citizens, who are 93% Christian, and also the Croatian constitution, which especially cares about family." The author also accused the Croatian media of "imposing the issue of homosexuals and their rights on people as if it were a crucial event," and authorities of "spending budget money ? on police protection for the parade." Calling homosexuals and bisexuals "sick and distorted," the editorial went so far as to speculate that an unknown assailant who threw tear gas into the crowd was actually one of the participants trying to get Croats accused of being intolerant.
Despite the violence and the plethora of insults shouted at the parade's participants, Iskorak's Manzin said that the parade was a success in many ways and that he hopes such rallies will become a traditional event, and announced next year's gay pride parade in advance. For the first time, he said, sexual minorities in Croatia took to the streets and discrimination was exposed.