Football player attempted to murder Croatian war invalid due to his sexual orientation
24/11/2010
Submitted by
Legal Team of Iskorak and Kontra
PRESS RELEASE
24 November 2010
Subject: Football player of first Croatian football league and his brother attempted to murder Croatian war invalid due to his sexal orientation
We are addressing you regarding attack on Mr. Goran Hadžić that happened in night 6/7 November 2010 around 2 a.m. Mr. Hadžić reported the attack to the Legal Team of Iskorak and Kontra and asked us to forward information from this statement to the media. Also, we engaged attorney at law to work on this case.
Miroslav Šarić (24), football player of first Croatian football league (former player of Dinamo, now plays for Inter) and his brother Marko Šarić (21) followed Mr. Hadžić after leaving gay club. Without any reason, they attacked Mr. Hadžić with intention to murder him, knocked him to the ground and were hitting him with legs only in head and they would certainly succeed in their intention to murder him if they were not stopped by arrival of four passersby. While they were hitting him with their legs in the head, both attackers were shouting repeatedly: “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him! Motherfucker faggot!”.
Mr. Hadžić, Croatian watr veteran and invalid, gained severe physical injuries; fracture of nose with shift, hematoma on the face, and tearing of the lip (7 stitches). Due to bleading from his head he was hospitalised in Vinogradska hospital at the department for neurosurgery several days.
Attackers are currently in pretrial detention in Zagreb.
Legal Team of Iskorak and Kontra provides free legal help to persons that experienced violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity for 8 years.
LGBT (lesbians, gay, bisexual, transgender) persons in most cases dont report violence due to fear of revealing their sexual orientation, but also because they dont have confidence into state institutions, especially police.
Increased frequency and intensity of attacks on LGBT persons in Croatia points to the need of more efficient actions by represive organs – police and State Attorney's Office in such cases.
We welcome condemnation of hate crimes against LGBT persons by minister of internal affairs, but we believe that stronger message from the government regarding this kind of criminal offences is needed. First of all, it is needed to introduce higher sanctions for hate crimes in new proposal of Criminal Code that currently is being created.
We demand from state institutions:
• From State Attorney's Office to qualify the attack on Mr. Hadžić as attempt of depraved heart murder in conjuction with race and other discrimination, due to the brutality and the way it was conducted;
• From relevant institutions to identify and penalise all perpetrators of violent attacks that have not been identified so far;
• To introduce higher sanctions for hate crimes against all social groups;
• To introduce continuous education of police officials on hate crimes based on sexual orientation and better cooperation with civil society organisations for protection of human rights of LGBT persons;
• Penalising discrimination and hate speech of the President of Croatian Football Association and other football trainers, and better implementation of the Anti-discrimination Act in general.
As supplement to this statement there is photo of Mr. Hadžić taken by his friend couple of days after the attack. Mr. Hadžić asked us to send it with the statement.
Sanja Juras, Edo Bulić,
koordinatorica Lezbijske grupe Kontra koordinator Iskoraka
24 November 2010
Subject: Football player of first Croatian football league and his brother attempted to murder Croatian war invalid due to his sexal orientation
We are addressing you regarding attack on Mr. Goran Hadžić that happened in night 6/7 November 2010 around 2 a.m. Mr. Hadžić reported the attack to the Legal Team of Iskorak and Kontra and asked us to forward information from this statement to the media. Also, we engaged attorney at law to work on this case.
Miroslav Šarić (24), football player of first Croatian football league (former player of Dinamo, now plays for Inter) and his brother Marko Šarić (21) followed Mr. Hadžić after leaving gay club. Without any reason, they attacked Mr. Hadžić with intention to murder him, knocked him to the ground and were hitting him with legs only in head and they would certainly succeed in their intention to murder him if they were not stopped by arrival of four passersby. While they were hitting him with their legs in the head, both attackers were shouting repeatedly: “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him! Motherfucker faggot!”.
Mr. Hadžić, Croatian watr veteran and invalid, gained severe physical injuries; fracture of nose with shift, hematoma on the face, and tearing of the lip (7 stitches). Due to bleading from his head he was hospitalised in Vinogradska hospital at the department for neurosurgery several days.
Attackers are currently in pretrial detention in Zagreb.
Legal Team of Iskorak and Kontra provides free legal help to persons that experienced violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity for 8 years.
LGBT (lesbians, gay, bisexual, transgender) persons in most cases dont report violence due to fear of revealing their sexual orientation, but also because they dont have confidence into state institutions, especially police.
Increased frequency and intensity of attacks on LGBT persons in Croatia points to the need of more efficient actions by represive organs – police and State Attorney's Office in such cases.
We welcome condemnation of hate crimes against LGBT persons by minister of internal affairs, but we believe that stronger message from the government regarding this kind of criminal offences is needed. First of all, it is needed to introduce higher sanctions for hate crimes in new proposal of Criminal Code that currently is being created.
We demand from state institutions:
• From State Attorney's Office to qualify the attack on Mr. Hadžić as attempt of depraved heart murder in conjuction with race and other discrimination, due to the brutality and the way it was conducted;
• From relevant institutions to identify and penalise all perpetrators of violent attacks that have not been identified so far;
• To introduce higher sanctions for hate crimes against all social groups;
• To introduce continuous education of police officials on hate crimes based on sexual orientation and better cooperation with civil society organisations for protection of human rights of LGBT persons;
• Penalising discrimination and hate speech of the President of Croatian Football Association and other football trainers, and better implementation of the Anti-discrimination Act in general.
As supplement to this statement there is photo of Mr. Hadžić taken by his friend couple of days after the attack. Mr. Hadžić asked us to send it with the statement.
Sanja Juras, Edo Bulić,
koordinatorica Lezbijske grupe Kontra koordinator Iskoraka
