TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

We are addressing you in relation to attack on the Italian tourists in Split, which was reported by media. Namely, media reported yesterday that two tourists from Italy were physically attacked at 4 pm in City of Split, as they were walking down the street and hugging each other. The perpetrators assumed that tourists were homosexual and that was the motive for the attack. It became clear later that tourists were brothers who came to City of Split on vacation. The urgent surgical help was administered to them in the Hospital of Split.

The Team for Legal Changes will initiate criminal proceedings against unknown offenders to the Municipal State Attorney’s Office of Split for two criminal offences - Violent Behaviour and Racial and Other Discrimination. We will urge to treat these criminal offences as hate crimes. Furthermore, we will inform Ombudswoman for Gender Equality and call her to monitor the case.

Unfortunately we have to conclude that Split became insecure city where attacks on tourists and citizens of the Republic of Croatia on the basis of assumed sexual orientation and other characteristics seem to occur on regular basis. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that one year ago; tourists from Kingdom of Spain were attacked on local beech Kašjuna in the City of Split. Both above mentioned attacks happened in the middle of day and in both cases the police did not bring criminal charges against perpetrators. It is a disgrace that the spokeswoman of the Police Headquarters of Splitsko-dalmatinska County stated that identities of perpetrators and victims remain to be unknown, while identities of victims were disclosed yesterday by the RTL television and they were recorded in the Hospital of Split. Such police conduct indicates that hate crimes against sexual minorities are not considered seriously and their number continuously grows.

We are requesting as follows:

• Of the Police to start implementation of recent legislation on hate crimes and internal instruction of the Ministry of Interior Affairs and to immediately find the perpetrators;
• Of the State Attorney’s Office to recognize this attack as criminal offences of Racial and Other Discrimination and Violent Behaviour and to qualify them as hate crimes. Also, to keep records on hate crimes;
• Of the state mechanisms for protection of human rights and gender equality to condemn this type of violence and to monitor police conduct in such cases.

Best regards,

Sanja Juras,
The Coordinator of Lesbian Group Kontra

Kristijan Grđan,
The Coordinator of Iskorak – Sexual and Gender Minorities’ Rights Centre

Bojana Genov,
The Coordinator of Croatian Women’s Network