SHAMEFUL VERDICT IN CROATIA: Young man who shouted “za dom spremni” into the camera acquitted!

A man who shouted “Za dom spremni” on live television has been acquitted by a Zagreb court, Zagreb media reported today.

The man was reported by Zagreb police based on a television recording from a public television station when, during a live broadcast on the Dnevnik on July 4 from Bogovićeva Street in Zagreb, a day before Thompson’s concert, the young man broke into the journalist’s shot and shouted “Za dom spremni!” into the camera.

That chant, as stated in the indictment, symbolizes the official greeting of the members of the Ustaša movement and the totalitarian regime of the Independent State of Croatia and as such represents a manifestation of racist ideology, contempt for other people because of their religious and ethnic affiliation, as well as the trivialization of the victims of crimes against humanity.

“Legal flag, legal chant…”

Judge Mirela Prstec Batarelo acquitted the young man of the charge of violating Article 5 of the Law on Misdemeanors against Public Order and Peace, and in the explanation of the verdict, she stated, among other things, that “this chant was used by the HOS during the Homeland War and then described in detail the historical path and formation of the HOS and their role in the defense of the country,” Dnevnik.hr reports.

She also mentioned Ante Starčević as the founder of the Croatian Party of Rights in 1861, as well as the party leadership from 1990, which then founded the HOS. She added that the official war flag of the HOS also contains the greeting “Za dom spremni,” and that this flag is still recognized today as the legal flag of a unit from the Homeland War.

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She praised the concert

The judge had only good words for Thompson and the song Bojna Čavoglave, which begins with the words “Za dom spremni.”

“In the joyful anticipation of Thompson’s concert, where his songs were played and sung on the streets of Zagreb, among other things, the words ‘Za dom spremni’ were uttered on air during a live broadcast, public order and peace were not disturbed, nor would it as such represent a manifestation of racist ideology, contempt for other people because of their religious and ethnic affiliation, or the trivialization of the victims of crimes against humanity,” said Judge Prstec Batarelo in the explanation of the acquittal.

She also added that the defendant shouted “Za dom spremni” on air during a live broadcast in the general euphoria of joy before Thompson’s concert, “which went on joyfully and peacefully, without incidents, and the fact is that one of his songs begins with those very words,” the judge said and wondered whether the prosecutor should then be consistent and prosecute all participants of the historical concert, half a million of them, including the Speaker of the Parliament and the ministers present.

“Only shouted song lyrics”

In the end, the judge states that in the case of the accused young man, there is no connection between his behavior and the symbols of the Ustaša regime, and that the accused did not spread national hatred but shouted lyrics from a song by a singer whose concert he was waiting for.

We recall that the BBC also wrote about Thompson’s concert, with the assessment that the Croatian government downplayed the significance of the shouting of “Za dom spremni” during the concert.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, who took a picture with Thompson the day before the big concert, described the chanting of the Ustaša slogan as “part of Thompson’s repertoire.”

Reuters also reported on Thompson, whose concerts are banned in several European countries, including the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Bosnia, and critics accuse him of toying with the ideology and iconography of the Croatian Ustaša government from World War II, which was supported by the Nazis.

The AP also wrote about the concert, reminding that the Croatian Ustaša regime in World War II ran concentration camps in which tens of thousands of ethnic Serbs, Jews, Roma, and anti-fascist Croats were brutally executed, the AP points out.

Some Croatian nationalists consider the leaders of the Ustaša regime the founders of the country, despite the fact that their crimes are recorded and known, the AP points out.