After a successful referendum banning gay marriage several years ago, a conservative NGO which is now also a political party wants to ban use of all symbols related to communist regime.
The Homeland Project political party announced on Tuesday that it was unacceptable in a democratic Croatia that some people organize birthday parties for communist dictator Josip Broz Tito and demanded a ban on the use and wearing of all symbols of communism – from red five-pointed stars and hammer and sickle to badges with Tito's face, reports Jutarnji List on May 25, 2016.
President of the Homeland Project Krešimir Planinić demanded at a press conference that Croatia must implement the 2006 resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on international condemnation of crimes of totalitarian communist regimes and a resolution on the removal of the heritage of former communist totalitarian systems.
“The communist regime, same as the Nazi and fascist regime, committed during the long period of 45 years individual and collective assassinations, executions, killings in concentration camps and other forms of mass physical and psychological terror, and demonstrated a lack of political pluralism”, said Planinić.
“It is necessary to implement the declaration condemning communist crimes through a ban on wearing the symbols of communism – a red five-pointed star, hammer and sickle, badges, symbols of the communist Yugoslav National Army and the like, as well as symbols of fascist and the Ustasha regime”, she Natalija Kanački.
The Homeland Project demands equal treatment and condemnation of all totalitarian regimes and the ban on their symbols in public spaces.
Višeslav Franić added that all those who personally committed or participated in crimes made by totalitarian communism in Croatia or against Croats in the other parts of the world should be prosecuted and should not be allowed to work in public administration, public services, education, media, the judiciary and on matters related to the protection and promotion of human rights and the rule of law activities.
Several years ago, the same group of people, gathered as part of the U Ime Obitelji association, successfully collected signatures for a referendum which ultimately led to a legal definition of marriage as a community of a man and a woman being included in the Constitution, effectively banning the possibility of gay marriages being formally recognized.
