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Croatia President, Prime Minister Condemn Violence At Gay Pride Parade

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Croatia’s President and Prime Minister condemned violence at a gay pride parade on Saturday, while a party leader pointed fingers at Roman Catholic priests’ messaging during the Pope’s recent visit as a catalyst for the violence against gays and lesbians and their allies.

 

Just one day after the European Commission green lighted Croatia for European Union admission in 2013, violence marred Split, Croatia’s first LGBT Pride March, instigated by at least 4,000 to include as many as 10,000 violent protesters, who pounced upon 200 LGBT marchers by throwing fists, firecrackers, bottles and rocks, some wielded cigarette lighters, threw tomatoes and tear gas by a virulently anti-gay opposition, who came prepared to disrupt the first gay event in the notorious nationalist right-wing stronghold of 1,700-year old Split, Croatia.

Croatia’s President Ivo Josipovic condemned the violence and was joined by Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, reports Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty this morning, Josipovic, the first Croatian president to formally endorse nationanl gay pride and LGBT rights last year, said that Split protesters have “shown that there are some non-European parts of our society and that the violence in Split was “not Croatia’s real face.”

Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor warned that violence and hatred were “something that cannot be tolerated in Croatia.”

Last year, Josipovic  became the first president in Croatian history to endorse and express his support for the national LGBT Pride celebration.

The Split-Dalmacia police department announced in a press conference following the Pride event that 137 persons were arrested, including 25 minors, and eight people required medical attention for injuries sustained, mostly members of the working, press, including a RTL cameraman, who suffered a concussion when hit with a brick and called a “Jew”.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IyxbrPqqmg&version=3&hl=en_US]

News organizations are also reporting this morning in Croatia Green Party leader AljoÅ¡a Babic is calling for the resignation of Tomislav Karamarko, the Minister of Internal Affairs, “because of the shameful conduct of police and security during Split Gay Pride.”

Babic added, “The Croatian tax payers do not pay the police to witness the scenes we’ve seen today in Split. [These] events are the result of  recent homophobic statements which were communicated by priests during the recent visit of the Pope.”

UK Gay News reports several “Croatian bishops have condemned what they call “unnatural families,” their term for same-sex headed households.

Babic also criticized President Ivo Josipović and Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor for not condemning the Vatican’s homophobic messages which were reported by the media, according to Babic.

Croatia, a deeply devout Roman Catholic country has historically had a nearly symbiotic relationship with with the Church that dates back to its darkest chapter during World War II while under occupation by the German Third Reich. Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac, a known collaborator and supporter of the  “Ustashe,” a Croatian nationalist movement that served as brutal proxies for the Nazis. Despite his conviction for war crimes in 1946,  Stepanac was beatified by Pope John Paul II, putting him on th p ath to “sainthood” (more on the Ustashe later).

Aloysius Stepanac was convicted of war crimes in 1946 and served 16 years in prison at hard labor.

Also condeming the violence was Amnesty International, who was the first international human rights organization,who said the violence was unacceptable. “The Croatian authorities need to act to stop this happening in future,” said Nicola Duckworth, the human right group’s director for Europe and Central Asia, urging an immediate investigation and punishment for the attackers.

According to Pride organizers, the parade participants totalled 200 people, mostly from Split, who were supported by 30 marchers from Belgrade, Serbia; Ljubljana, Slovenia; the Netherlands, among other European cities.

With extensive police barricades in place along the parade route, police reportedly deployed 400 uniformed officers and unknown numbers of officers in plain clothes, although Croatian LGBT activists criticized the government agencies who were responsible for maintaining public safety.

Police in full-riot gear, were outmatched by thousands of full-throated opposition, many of whom screamed “kill the gays,” “kill the Serbs,” and “kill the gypsies,” repeatedly. Signs carried by LGBT activists said “Lesbians are okay,” Lesbians Against Fascism,” and “My Partner, My Lover,” among others were defiantly displayed by the small minority.

In a report by Croatian Nacional newspaper, Sanja Juras, of the Croatian Lesbian group, Kontra, addressed the audience from the rally stage near the Split waterfront and accused police of not adequately protecting the protesters, consequently people were injured.

“State institutions have not done their job properly, and today’s rally in Split reflects that LGBT rights are not  guaranteed legal rights in Croatia,” Juras said.

Also speaking at the rally were European Parliament member Marije Coruielssen of the Netherlands,  a member of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, Linda Frieman, co-chair of the European division of the International Lesbian and Gay Association, LGBT activists from Slovenia, the first and only Former Yugoslav republic to have joined the EU and, activists from Serbia, another Balkan country which has experienced at least a decade of violence against LGBT human rights activists who have yet to march, without significant violence occurring in Belgrade.

READ: Belgrade Gay Pride Marchers Attacked By Violent Anti-Gay Demonstrators In Historic Parade

The violence against LGBT people in Split, Zagreb, Belgrade and Sarajevo did not manifest from a vacuum.  Wars were fought three times during the 20th century in the Balkans which have planted seeds of deep emnity, transmitted intergenerationally by members of ethnic groups and religious faiths–leaving scars all around that remain tangible in the body politic and  cultural memory.

Croatia fought two wars in the 1990s, led by extreme nationalist Franjo Tudjman, who merged his rule with an insurgent and nationalistic Roman Catholic Church, against former Yugoslavia, eventually securing independence from Belgrade, long imagined and sought for throughout the 20th century. Croatia fought a bloody war against Serbia, eventually repelling Serb forces who invaded Croatia in 1991.

Croatia later joined forces with the Bosnian Muslim-Croat Federation. who had declared independence from Belgrade  in March 1992.  Croatia and Bosnia jointly fought the Serbs who were pushed to stop the war by American diplomat Richard Holbrooke.  The parties signed a peace agreement in Dayton, Ohio in 1995 . Many horrible war crimes, including genocide and crimes against humanity, rape, torture and enslavement, occurred during the course of these wars, committed disproportionately by Serbian, Bosnian Serb and Croatian military and paramilitary members, many of whom have been prosecuted by the International Criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

READ: Bosnian Serb General to Stand Trial for Crimes Against Humanity

But the recent wars are emotionally layered and political charged by unresolved events that occurred during World War II.  Croat nationalists established the Croat Revolutionary Movement, also known as the “Ustashe” who committed some of the worst excesses of World War II in its heinous and banal collaboration with Nazi Germany’s Third Reich.  These sordid events transpired during the Axis Powers occupation and annexation of Croatia (including the Split area) and of Bosnia and Herzegovina as far east as Banja Luka, the present capital the Bosnian Serb entity.

According to many historical accounts, Archbishop Stepanac was a partner and collaborator with  the Ustashe government.  He supported the Ustashi Government from the beginning until the end. Indeed, even after Ustashi Croatia collapsed following the disintegration of Nazi Germany.  Stepinac was not only the Head of the Council of Croatian Bishops and of the committee which carried out a policy of forcible conversions, he was none other than the Supreme Military Apostolic Vicar of the Ustashi Army, which is a major symbol of the Roman Catholic Church.

When Ustashi Croatia fell in 1945 as a result of the defeat of Nazi Germany and Ante Pavelic, the leader of the government ran for his life, Archbishop Stepinac, in a futile effort to save the regime, succeeded him as leader of the Ustashi Croatia. Stepinac ordered special ceremonies in all the Catholic churches on Pavelic’s birthday, and he frequently invoked prayers for the Ustashi.

Marshall Tito, who led the Partisan communisist in a civil war against the Croats and the Serb Chetniks, of the Serbian Renewal Movement, eventually defeating both parties and supported efforts by Allied Forces who invaded Italy and drove the Nazis from the Balkans. Tito formed the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia that he governed until his death in 1980.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yydmw-V3OxI&version=3&hl=en_US]

Since 1995, Croatia has been working its way toward achieving peace, interrupted at times on its path to Europe, which took a considerable leap when Tudjman died in 1999.  Through a series of good fortune and electing less nationalistic governments (although corruption remains an endemic problem for Croatia and throughout the region) that rid itself of the hardline political party Croatian Democratic Union and has worked assiduously during the past six years toward achieving required legal and financial reforms necessary for European Union accession.

EU accession requires the decriminalization of existing sodomy laws and adoption of anti-discrimination laws, including  employment anti-discrimination protection. This leverage over the accession process has advanced LGBT organizing throughout hte Balkans to mitigated success.

But it has always been two steps forward, one step back for Croatia, whose efforts to arrest war criminals has been resisted by many in the populace, who view some of these generals as “heroes”. In April two former Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac were sentenced for war crimes committed in 1995.  Gotovina had been a fugitive for many years when he was arrested in Spain in 2006, although thousands turned out in Split in protest over his extradition to ICTY.

Thus last Friday, the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso announced that “today is a special day for Croatia and for the European Union.“  Barroso also said: “At this significant moment, I would like to applaud the Croatian authorities for their hard work over the last years. Even more importantly, I would like to congratulate the people of Croatia. Joining the EU family of nations is first and foremost your success!”

Tanya L. Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, who teaches about human rights in Eurasia and is a Harriman Institute affiliated faculty member. Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi worked internationally for more than a decade on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights, gender issues, sex trafficking, and media freedom.

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News

Torture? Shoot Protesters? Greenland? Question After Question, Hegseth Refused to Answer

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January 14, 2025

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Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial and, many say, unqualified nominee to lead the millions of people serving in the U.S. Armed Forces and oversee the Pentagon’s $842 billion budget, refused to give straight answers to numerous questions posed by U.S. Senators during his short, four-hour-and-fifteen-minute confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

Democrats on the committee had requested multiple rounds of questions so they could follow up with the nominee, a former Fox News weekend host who has been accused of sexual assault, “aggressive drunkenness,” sexism, mismanaging two veterans’ non-profits, and an apparent embrace of Christian nationalism. Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) refused, despite precedent with multiple nominees before the committee over many years. Wicker also refused to allow the FBI’s report on Hegseth to be made available to all members of the committee.

Hegseth, at times combative, frequently battled Democratic Senators, talking over them and refusing to answer numerous questions, while often praising Donald Trump — and invoking his name as a shield. Questions he did answer often came from Republicans on the committee. They included questions like, How many genders are there? How many pushups can you do? What do you love about your wife?

But Hegseth refused to give straight answers to a large number of basic questions, such as: Would you submit to an expanded FBI background check? Agree to use the military to seize Greenland or the Panama Canal? In each of your weddings you’ve pledged to be faithful to your wife? Should allegations of spousal abuse be disqualifying?

One question Hegseth initially refused to answer was what his use of the apparent slur, “jag off” means.

“I don’t think I need to, sir,” he told the Ranking Member, Jack Reed, when politely asked.

“Why not?” Reed, surprised, asked.

“Because the men and women watching understand,” Hegseth replied.

He only explained it when Reed reminded him that “perhaps some of my colleagues don’t understand.”

READ MORE: ‘Loyalty to a Tyrant’: Cheney Invokes Jack Smith’s Report to Warn Senate on Trump Nominees

“It would be a JAG officer who puts his or her own priorities in front of the war fighters,” Hegseth finally said. (JAG is Judge Advocate General, a military attorney.)

Hegseth’s history of comments against women and LGBTQ service members is well-documented. U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) repeatedly pressed him on his beliefs on women in the military.

“Will you commit to preserving the Women, Peace, and Security Law at DOD and including in your budget the requisite funding to continue to restore and resource these programs throughout the DOD?” Senator Shaheen asked, referring to this law.

“I, Senator, I will commit to reviewing that program and ensuring it aligns with America First, national security priorities, meritocracy, lethality and readiness. And if it advances American interests, it’s something we would advance,” Hegseth smugly replied. “If it doesn’t, it’s something we would look at.”

“Well since former President Trump signed it into the law, I hope that he agrees with you,” Shaheen responded.

At one point, when Hegseth grew combative, he talked over U.S. Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI), forcing her to repeatedly say, “I’m not hearing the answer to my question.” He then refused to answer if he would “resign if you drink on the job, which is a 24/7 position?”

Senator Hirono also asked Hegseth if he would comply with an order from the Commander-in-Chief, who will be Donald Trump, to shoot protestors. He refused to give a straight answer.

“In 2020, then President Trump directed former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to shoot protesters in the legs in downtown D.C., an order Secretary Esper refused to comply with. Would you carry out such an order from President Trump?” she asked.

Hegseth launched into what appeared to be a defense of Trump’s order, but would not answer, leading Hirono to say, “Sounds to me that you would comply with such an order, you will shoot protesters in the leg.”

Asked, again by Hirono, if he would “carry out an order from President Trump to seize Greenland, a territory of our NATO ally Denmark, and, “comply with an order to take over the Panama Canal,” Hegseth again refused to give a straight answer.

“Senator, I will emphasize that President Trump received 77 million votes to be the lawful Commander-in-Chief —” Hegseth replied.

“We’re not talking about the election,” Hirono reminded him.

“Senator, one of the things that President Trump is so good at is never strategically tipping his hand,” Hegseth, again lavishing praise on Trump, replied, again not giving a straight answer.

In a similar vein, Hegseth refused to give a straight answer to U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who asked if there are any orders a Commander-in-Chief could give that would be unlawful and violate the Constitution.

“I reject the premise that President Trump is going to be giving illegal orders,” he exclaimed.

He also refused to give a straight answer when asked if he has been in conversations about using active duty military within the U.S., and using active duty military in U.S.-based detention camps.

RELATED: FBI Report on Hegseth ‘Insufficient’ Says Top Dem: ‘I Do Not Believe You Are Qualified’

Hegseth’s back-and-forth with U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) however were among the most damaging, as veterans’ advocate Paul Rieckhoff noted.

At one point, Hegseth refused to answer if spousal abuse would be disqualifying for someone to be Secretary of Defense, after refusing to say he would release his former wives from NDAs if there were any.

“Did you ever engage in any acts of physical violence against any of your wives?” Kaine asked.

“Senator, absolutely not,” Hegseth replied.

“But you would agree with me that if someone had committed physical violence against the spouse, that would be disqualifying to serve as Secretary of Defense, correct?” Kaine continued.

“Senator, absolutely not have I ever done that,” Hegseth stressed.

“You would agree that would be a disqualifying offense, would you not?” Kaine pressed.

“Senator, you’re talking about a hypothetical,” Hegseth responded, again refusing to answer.

“I don’t think it’s a hypothetical. Violence against spouses occurs every day,” Kaine insisted. And if you as a leader are not capable of saying that physical violence against a spouse should be a disqualifying fact, for being Secretary [of Defense] of the most powerful nation in the world, you demonstrating an astonishing lack of judgment.”

The liberal Super PAC American Bridge put out this clip, saying, “Pete Hegseth refuses to say he doesn’t support waterboarding, torture, or abandoning the Geneva Conventions. This guy has dangerous ideas that have no place at the Department of Defense.”

In that exchange with Senator Angus King (I-VT), Hegseth also declared, “what an America First national security policy is not going to do is hand decisions over to international bodies.”

And when asked to give just true or false answers to questions about numerous alleged instances of intoxication, Hegseth repeatedly replied, “anonymous smears.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

RELATED: ‘Marxist’ Agenda: Hegseth Says Gay Troops ‘Erode Standards’ in ‘Social Engineering’ Push

 

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FBI Report on Hegseth ‘Insufficient’ Says Top Dem: ‘I Do Not Believe You Are Qualified’

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January 14, 2025

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s vetting of Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s highly controversial nominee to head the U.S. Department of Defense, an $842 billion entity that employs more than 2.8 million people, was “insufficient,” Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee warned at the start of his confirmation hearing Tuesday.

The FBI’s report on Hegseth was made available only to the Chairman and the Ranking Member of the Armed Services Committee, not the rank-and-file Senators on the Committee. Ranking Member Reed asked that the report be made available to the entire committee, but the Republican Chairman, Roger Wicker, refused.

Critics have noted that, similarly to how the FBI conducted its investigation into sexual harassment allegations against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the Bureau reportedly did not interview the person who allegedly was sexually abused. In October 2018, as ABC News reported, the FBI did not interview Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.

READ MORE: ‘Loyalty to a Tyrant’: Cheney Invokes Jack Smith’s Report to Warn Senate on Trump Nominees

ABC News also, on Tuesday, reported the FBI did not interview the woman, whose name has not been made public, who “told investigators in October 2017 that she had encountered Hegseth at an event afterparty at a California hotel where both had been drinking and claimed that he sexually assaulted her.”

The New York Times on Tuesday published a report detailing concerns Democrats have voiced about Hegseth and the FBI’s report.

“Quite a few of the women with significant allegations against him have not been interviewed by the F.B.I. investigators,” Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) said on MSNBC on Monday evening, The Times reported, “adding that some of those women feared for their safety and that of their children.”

“My understanding is that some of them would like to be contacted by the F.B.I. investigative team, or the vetters, and they have not been talked to,” Duckworth also told MSNBC.

“One missed opportunity,” The Times reported, “came when the bureau did not interview one of Mr. Hegseth’s ex-wives before its findings were presented to senators last week, according to people familiar with the bureau’s investigation.”

Another Democratic Senator on the Armed Services Committee, Richard Blumenthal, told The Times: “There are significant gaps and inadequacies in the report, including the failure to interview some of the key potential witnesses with personal knowledge of improprieties or abuse.”

READ MORE: LA Mayor a ‘Communist’ Alleges Fox News Host With Ties to Trump Nominee

Tuesday morning, Ranking Member Reed told Republican Chairman Wicker: “You and I have both seen the FBI background investigation, as they have said, and I want to say, to the record, I believe the investigation was insufficient.”

“Frankly, there are still FBI obligations to talk to people, they have not had access to the forensic audit, which I referenced, and the person who had access to was quite critical of Mr. Hegseth, and I think people on both sides have suggested that they get the report.”

“I know your colleagues have asked for it, [Senate Republican Majority Leader] Thune assured me personally that he thought it was the appropriate idea.”

Reed noted that another of Trump’s nominees, “had similar, very complicated personal issues,” and the “report was made available for all the members.”

Chairman Wicker refused Ranking Member Reed’s request.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Reed went on to tell Hegseth, “I do not believe that you are qualified to meet the overwhelming demands of this job.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

RELATED: ‘Marxist’ Agenda: Hegseth Says Gay Troops ‘Erode Standards’ in ‘Social Engineering’ Push

 

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‘Loyalty to a Tyrant’: Cheney Invokes Jack Smith’s Report to Warn Senate on Trump Nominees

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20 hours ago

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January 14, 2025

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Republican former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, who served as vice chair of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, on Tuesday cited the Special Counsel’s just-released, 174-page report on Donald Trump’s involvement with the January 6 insurrection, and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, to deliver a prescient warning to members of the Senate. Starting today, the Senate begins confirmation hearings on the President-elect’s highly-controversial cabinet nominees. Focusing on Justice Department nominees, she warned Senators that those “compromised by personal loyalty to a tyrant” should not be confirmed.

Jack Smith, who resigned as Special Counsel on Friday ahead of the President-elect’s inauguration next week, emphasized in his report that there was sufficient evidence to warrant prosecuting Donald Trump. He also noted that if those cases had proceeded to a jury trial, the evidence was strong enough to secure convictions.

Smith wrote, “after conducting thorough investigations, I found that, with respect to both Mr. Trump’s unprecedented efforts to unlawfully retain power after losing the 2020 election and his unlawful retention of classified documents after leaving office, the [Principles of Federal Prosecution] compelled prosecution.”

READ MORE: LA Mayor a ‘Communist’ Alleges Fox News Host With Ties to Trump Nominee

His final words in his report state that the Special Counsel’s office “assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”

Cheney says that Smith’s report makes clear that Trump’s nominees, specifically, Justice Department nominees, had anything to do with his efforts to overturn the election, they must not be confirmed by the Senate: “if those nominees cooperated with Trump’s deceit to overturn the 2020 election, they cannot now be entrusted with the responsibility to preserve the rule of law and protect our Republic.”

“The Special Counsel’s 1/6 Report,” her statement begins, “made public last night, confirms the unavoidable facts of 1/6 yet again. DOJ’s exhaustive and independent investigation reached the same essential conclusions as the Select Committee. All this DOJ evidence must be preserved.”

READ MORE: Senator Suggests Unusual Interpretation of ‘Advice and Consent’ Responsibility

“But most important now, as the Senate considers confirming Trump’s Justice Department nominees: if those nominees cooperated with Trump’s deceit to overturn the 2020 election, they cannot now be entrusted with the responsibility to preserve the rule of law and protect our Republic. As our framers knew, our institutions only hold when those in office are not compromised by personal loyalty to a tyrant.”

“So this question is now paramount for Republicans: Will you faithfully perform the duties the framers assigned to you and do what the Constitution requires? Or do you lack the courage?”

Sarah Longwell, a Republican and the publisher of The Bulwark, responded, writing: “This. Donald Trump has revealed how shallow the vast majority of the current GOP’s commitment is to the constitution and the American experiment. These confirmation hearings will be another inflection point for the few who claim they value their oath. I hope some rise to the occasion.”

READ MORE: Trump Trying to Buy Back His DC Hotel Seen as ‘Magnet’ for Conflicts of Interest: Reports

 

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