THE ATTACK

On Saturday, 7 July 2007, a group of Slovene activists, co-organizers of the Ljubljana Pride (Mitja Blažič, President of the Association for the Integration of Homosexuality (DIH), Viki Kern, member of the Board of DIH, and Andrej Habjan, Secretary of DIH), attended the Zagreb Pride 2007.
The Ljubljana Pride and the Zagreb Pride were twinned this year and that is why a group of Croatian activists attended the Ljubljana Pride on Saturday, 30 June 2004, and a group of Slovene activists returned the visit and support on Saturday, 7 July 2007.
After the Zagreb Pride had finished, Croatian organizers wanted to take us – a group of about ten people – out for a meal. In a tight group, just as we had been advised for safety reasons because of the possibility of homophobic attacks in the city, we made for the city centre in the direction of the bar. In Tkalčićeva ulica street we suddenly noticed a group of about ten young men observing us from the summer garden of the bar. When they realized we were gay and participants of the Pride, they quickly got up and started running after us with the clear intention of carrying out a homophobic physical attack. Shouting things like "Get the faggots!", the group was running after us. As soon as we realized we were witnesses of another in the series of homophobic attacks, we started running. Since I was one of the last in the group, the group of the violent young men caught up with me fast. A number of them approached me with the clear intention of carrying out a homophobic physical attack, and one of them started hitting me with his fists. I warded off the blows with my arm, and defended myself against the attackers with an umbrella and shouted "Stop it! Enough! I'll call the police!" My shouting, my defense with the umbrella and also, I believe, the Slovene language caught the attackers off guard, so they quit the attack. Spitting at me and abusing me ("Faggot!"), they started moving away, and having failed to draw the attention of other violent groups to join them, they dispersed quickly after that.
Immediately after the worst had been over, I informed the Slovene Embassy in Zagreb and asked for help, and my colleagues called the police, who arrived to the scene in a few minutes. They made notes about the events and took the attacked to the Police Station Zagreb I at Strossmayerjev trg 3.


AT THE POLICE STATION

At the station, the police did not give us protection and follow proper procedure; rather, we had to endure further improper treatment, insults, ridicule, and discrimination.
First, we were seated in the same room with three young people who clearly expressed intolerance and hatred against us. Now we were in a situation where we were faced with homophobic individuals in addition to having to deal with the stress brought on by the attack.
The police officers questioned all the victims of the attack. I demanded that the officer who questioned me, presumably Josip Paveliček (he did not introduce himself, but he signed the minutes, so I presume it was him), issue a formal statement that I reported the attack for further report to be made at the Slovene Embassy. The statement gives the following as my words:

The reporting person states:
That on 7 July 2007 at about 16.25 after the "Gay Pride" in Zagreb in Trg P. Preradovića square, he was verbally attacked from the side of more unknown men, together with an organizer from Zagreb, while crossing Tkalčićeva ulica street. That at a certain moment he was about to receive a blow with a fist from the side of an unknown man in the left arm. That, trying to defend himself, he used the umbrella he was holding to hit the unknown men a couple of times, and that is when his prescription glasses fell onto the floor and both glasses broke.

I informed the officer that I did not say this in my report, that the minutes do not represent what I said, that the minutes do not correspond to the facts that I witnessed at the scene of the attack. That I was not verbally attacked by ten unknown men, that there was no verbal attack, that in fact there was a clear attempt at carrying out a homophobic attack that I repelled in self-defense. I demanded that he change the minutes, but he refused all my demands. Visibly upset, he wanted to convince me that the words fit the facts. He put me under pressure with questions of how many people really attacked me, where I had any injuries, etc. I told him I defended myself with my umbrella that is why only one of the attackers managed really to hit me, but that there were more, about ten, and that it was not a verbal attack but an attempt at a physical homophobic attack. As the officer did not want to take any of my arguments into account, and did not want to change the minutes in such a way that they would contain what I really said, rather than interpret the events in his own way, and I stood by my argumentation, a loud discussion arose, which drew other police officers involved in the case into the room. Other victims of the attack got involved in the discussion as well. One of the plain-clothes officers (who did not introduce himself) was especially active while trying to convince us that the minutes were ok. He said we were not suited to teach them police work, and that we were exerting pressure on the police. In the meantime, another uniformed officer told us "there would have been no attacks had we not come to the Pride", which I find to be insulting in the extreme as well as showing unprofessional treatment of the victims of an attack.
As our discussion did not move from the deadlock, I took the minutes, emphasized I did not agree with them, that I was not ready to sign anything of the sort, and that I would inform the Slovene Embassy about everything that had happened.

While reporting the homophobic attack, further problems came up. Among other things, discrimination against the present victims occurred from the side of a plain-clothes police officer Davor Jurjević.
Viki Kern, who witnessed the events, says: "At a certain moment, a plain-clothes police officer got into the waiting room, and rudely told us that all the rubbish has to be cleaned from the table. We told him we would do so. Then he repeated the demand even more rudely, and asked if anyone there present was the partner of the victim (i.e. Mitja Blažič, who was being questioned). I told him I was his partner and asked him why he wanted to know it. Visibly upset, the officer replied that he was only asking and why he wasn't allowed to ask that. I asked again why he wanted to know it. He didn't want to tell why, instead he told us: "Don't even consider touching one another, hugging or kissing or doing anything like that here!" I asked him why not, and the plain-clothes officer replied that it was because it was a public place and it was a police station, and then left." It has to be added that for some of the time the above-mentioned group of clearly homophobic individuals was in the same waiting room as ourselves waiting for their turn. Two of them were a couple, as they hugged and kisses more times during the wait, but they did not receive any warning from the plain-clothes police officer Davor Jurjević.
Forbidding a person to hug their partner immediately after an attack, and calm and comfort them is in my view inhumane.

It is abundantly clear to all the victims of the homophobic attack that the police procedures were not carried out properly. We were made to wait in the same room with a group of homophobes, which was, having just endured a homophobic attack, highly stressful. The police officers behaved improperly, rudely and without respect, in some cases they even ridiculed and insulted us. It was more than obvious more times that they are prejudiced against same-sex orientation, at least two of them were clearly intolerant, one of them practised direct discrimination.
The police officer, presumably Josip Paveliček, who questioned me did not want to write down the facts about the attack; rather, he interpreted the events in his own way and wrote statements in the minutes that I never uttered.
In the end, as we asked the police to take us to our car because of the danger of another attack, they took us there in a Black Maria, locked behind barred windows like some criminals.

Mitja Blažič,
President of DIH – Association for the Integration of Homosexuality