Za dom spremni

Social media has made it easier for Croatian nationalists to attack opponents who speak publicly about controversial periods in the country's history.

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.

The Court of High Misdemeanours in Zagreb on Wednesday ruled that the controversial nationalist singer Marko Perkovic, widely known as Thompson, did not violate public order and breach then peace with his use of the chant "Za dom spremni" ("Ready for the homeland") in his song Bojna Cavoglave.

The World Jewish Congress, an international organisation representing Jewish communities, praised on Monday the Austrian parliament's adoption of a proposed ban on the annual commemoration of the killings of Croatian Nazi-allied troops and civilians at Bleiburg in Austria by the Yugoslav Partisans at the end of World War II.

Serbian ambassador Vladimir Bozovic outside the Foreign Ministry in Podgorica. Photo: Government of Montenegro.

Bozovic said after the meeting at the ministry he had no intention of interfering in RTCG's editorial policies.

"I respect the state of Montenegro. But like all Serbian people, I am especially sensitive about the fascist Ustasa movement," Bozovic told media.

The HOS, significantly, wasn't just any nationalist militia. It was marked by its unapologetic defence of the World War II Nazi-collaborationist Ustasa movement.

War veterans' associations and Croatia's war veterans' minister have condemned President Zoran Milanovic for saying that a controversial plaque with the Ustasa slogan 'Za dom spremni' ('Ready for the Home(land)') should be removed.

The annual gathering in Bleiburg in Austria, which commemorates tens of thousands of Croatian Nazi-allied Ustasa troops and civilians who were killed by the Yugoslav Partisans in 1945, will not be held this year as planned on May 16, media reported on Tuesday.

Charges have been pressed against 13 people who rallied in front of a Catholic church in Sirobuja, a suburb of the coastal city of Split, flouting a ban on public gatherings during the coronavirus epidemic, Croatian media reported on Tuesday.

Chinese citizen Sze Yat Lung, who is currently living in Croatia, was arrested on Monday after a video was posted on social networks showing him singing Croatian ultranationalist songs in a cafe in Imotski, where he was watching the finals of the European Handball Championship between Croatia and Spain.