In March 2023, the Government of the Republic of Croatia adopted a National Plan for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights and Combatting Discrimination, 2023-2027, along with an accompanying Action Plan for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights (2023) and an Action Plan for Suppression of Discrimination (2023). The Plans define and set out special goals related to the exercise of human rights and preventing discrimination in Croatia. In February 2025, the Government of the Republic of Croatia adopted two implementing action plans of this National Plan. These action plans include a significant number of activities aimed at raising awareness of the importance of combating hate crimes based on national, sexual and gender identity, improving the collection of data on hate crimes, and educational activities for law enforcement officials on effectively recognizing and prosecuting hate crimes, as well as on effective support for victims.
In 2024, 1.6 per cent (4,015) of civil servants passed an anti-discrimination and gender equality education and test - now an obligatory part of the state exam for all civil servants. The Ministry of Justice, Administration and Digital Transformation increased financial support to civil society support providers of free legal assistance, and prolonged the project's duration by three years.
The Working Group for Monitoring Hate Crimes was established and met twice in 2024, with relevant civil society organizations participating in the work of the Group.
On 8 March 2024, a training on "Hate Crime and Hate Speech" was held at the premises of the Judicial Academy in Osijek, which was organized by the Government Office for Human Rights and the Rights of National Minorities in cooperation with the Judicial Academy. The training event is another in a series of seminars intended for criminal and misdemeanour judges, advisors to municipal and county courts, deputies and state attorney advisors of the criminal department at the county and municipal levels, and police officers. More than 20 participants from the Osijek-Baranja, Požega-Slavonia and Vukovar-Srijem counties participated in the training.
This category includes hate crimes committed on the basis of bias against Serbs (21), hatred against Croats (5), racial/ethnic origin or skin colour (23), hatred against Indians (1), Albanians (1), Montenegrins (1), Turks (1). A breakdown by type of crime was only reported for the 'racial/ethnic origin or skin colour' category in this dataset (23 cases), namely 6 physical assaults, 4 cases of damage to property, 7 cases of disturbance of the peace, and 6 threats.
Thirteen cases were motivated by bias based on sexual orientation and one by bias based on gender identity.
The UN’s Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) published relevant recommendations in its "Concluding observations on the second periodic report of Croatia".
The UN Human Rights Council published relevant recommendations in its "Croatia Compilation of information prepared by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights".
ODIHR recognizes Croatia's efforts to regularly report hate crime information and statistics to ODIHR. However, based on the available information, it observes that Croatia's hate crime recording and statistics do not sufficiently distinguish hate crimes from other crimes. In addition, ODIHR observes that Croatia would benefit from raising awareness among and building the capacity of criminal justice officials to address hate crime.
ODIHR recalls that in Ministerial Council Decision 9/09, participating States agreed to a common hate crime definition and committed to collecting reliable data and statistics on hate crimes. To that end, throughout the recording and data collection process hate crimes must be distinguished from incitement to hatred offences and other crimes falling outside of the OSCE's hate crime definition. Participating States also committed to introducing or further developing professional training and capacity-building activities for law enforcement, prosecution, and judicial officials dealing with hate crimes.
ODIHR stands ready to support Croatia in meeting its relevant commitments through the provision of comprehensive resources and tailored assistance in the area of hate crime recording and data collection, as well as by providing further resources and tailored capacity-building assistance for police, prosecution, and judiciary.
For 2024, ODIHR received reports of hate incidents in Croatia from the following civil society organizations:
Centre for Peace Studies (CMS)
Lesbian Organization Rijeka (LORI)
International Institute for Religious Freedom (IIRF)
The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe (OIDAC)
In addition, the Holy See also submitted reports of incidents monitored in Croatia by its representatives.
To learn more about these organizations, visit the Contributors page.
All incidents submitted by the above organizations have been analysed by ODIHR. Those that were broadly considered to be hate crimes within the OSCE definition (criminal offence committed with a bias motive) are listed in the tables below according to the bias motivation category. Some incidents involved multiple biases and may be listed in multiple categories.
ODIHR’s insightsFor 2024, ODIHR received reports of 23 incidents that took place in Croatia in the following bias motivation categories: racist and xenophobic, anti-Christian, and anti-LGBTI. ODIHR observes that a significant number of racist and xenophobic incidents in Croatia involved physical assaults, often targeting migrants or national minorities, with repeated attacks against people of Asian, Russian, and Turkish backgrounds, and with a specific targeting of delivery workers. Many victims sustained severe injuries, including fractures, and required hospitalization. ODIHR also observed that all reported anti-Christian incidents were attacks against property, including arson, destruction of religious symbols, damage to church buildings and statues, and anti-Christian graffiti. Finally, ODIHR noted a number of anti-LGBTI threats online and at school, as well as physical assaults during protests and in public spaces. It should be noted that ODIHR did not receive any reporting on Croatia relating to anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Roma, gender-based, other religion or belief, or disability hate incidents. This indicates potential gaps in the information reported here. |
Please note that incidents reported here are based on voluntary civil society submissions and as such might not reflect the actual number of incidents or the most targeted communities in Croatia.
To address under-reporting, ODIHR encourages any civil society organizations or groups that monitor hate incidents in Croatia to report these to ODIHR at hatecrimereport@odihr.pl.
To export an Excel sheet with summaries of all incidents from Croatia click here and search by year and country.