Croatian Defence Forces

A photograph that was circulated on social media of a group of Dinamo Zagreb fans holding lighted flares and a banner with an obscene anti-Serb slogan has provoked outrage.

"There does not seem to be a rock bottom," Dario Brentin, associated researcher from the University of Graz in Austria, an expert on sport and nationalism in Croatia, wrote on Twitter on Friday.

'Defenders of the homeland'

Croatian Ombudsperson Lora Vidovic on Tuesday said that if police failed to initiate legal action against former members of a paramilitary unit, who on Monday celebrated the anniversary of Operation Storm by chanting the Fascist slogan "Za dom spremni", it will be a blatant violation of the legal order.

Zagreb County Court on Tuesday handed down a first-instance verdict convicting former Bosnian Serb Army officer Dane Lukajic of physically abusing prisoners at the Manjaca camp during wartime, and sentenced him to six years in prison, local media reported.

The verdict was made public on Thursday after the prosecution and defence issued their closing statements on Monday.

But why did the boycotts start in 2016 - why exactly that year? Did it maybe coincide with the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, taking power in Croatia?

Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic's sudden changes of heart about a World War II salute used by the Ustasa movement reflect her desperate wish to please the international community, which has been criticising Croatia over historical revisionism, and a right-wing constituency that has supported her through four years of her presidency, experts say.

A 1990s battalion of the Croatian Defence Forces, named after a WWII Ustasa commander, commemorated its foundation in the city of Split by chanting the fascist slogan ‘Za dom spremni’.