Croatia continues to implement its National Plan for Combating Discrimination for the period from 2017 to 2022. Over this six-year period, this strategic document aims to implement a complete system of protection against discrimination over this six-year period.
The government's programme for 2020-2024 envisages strengthening the legislative framework for combating hate speech, especially against vulnerable groups and national minorities. The government's obligations to combat all forms of violence and hate speech in society are outlined in the programme and will be implemented through prevention activities, including investing in education, professional consultations, public awareness-raising campaigns and strengthening media literacy. In addition, Croatia will continue to advocate for the prosecution of those who publicly spread hate speech or incite violence.
On 2 December 2022, the draft National Plan for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights and the Combating of Discrimination for the period 2023 to 2027, the draft Action Plan for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights for 2023 and the draft Action Plan for the Combating Discrimination for 2023 were submitted for public consultation. The public consultation was open until 31 December 2022.
The National Plan is the result of broad consultations with relevant stakeholders from the national administration, civil society, independent institutions for the protection of human rights and the academia – all of whom are members of the Working Group for monitoring hate crimes. It is worth noting that members of the Roma national minority also participated in the work of the Working Group. An inclusive approach and partnership dialogue will be ensured during the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Action Plans.
The "Unspecified" category includes two offences classified as domestic violence.
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) published relevant recommendations in its "Concluding observations on the combined ninth to fourteenth periodic reports of Croatia".
ODIHR recognizes Croatia's efforts to regularly report hate crime information and data 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.
🛈 Please note that the total number of incidents may be lower than the sum of incidents presented in the breakdown chart above, as some incidents involve multiple bias motivations.
🛈 ODIHR no longer presents descriptions of property attacks in the incident tables below. Data on property attacks are presented in the breakdown charts above. One property attack may target multiple properties or involve multiple types of attack.