“No room for fear”: broad antifascist front confronts far-right violence in Croatia

Tens of thousands marched in four Croatian cities to oppose escalating far-right violence, intimidation, and revisionism.

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By Ana Vračar, People's Dispatch

Tens of thousands of people in four Croatian cities took to the streets on Sunday, November 30, responding to a call from the initiative United Against Fascism (Ujedinjeni protiv fašizma), a broad coalition of civil society organizations and grassroots groups. Marchers in Zagreb, Rijeka, Zadar, and Pula denounced the escalating wave of far-right violence and historical revisionism, vowing to build broad resistance to trends that are encouraged and supported by the political establishment.

“We stand united against fascism because, day after day, we are not witnessing isolated outbursts, but the emergence of a blueprint – one that grows when we remain silent, gains strength when we tolerate it, and ultimately turns fear into the rule rather than the exception,” United Against Fascism declared in its call. “But when we stand together, there is no room for fear.”

United Against Fascism warned that public funds are being cut from education and violence prevention budgets while military spending rises. “Society is being led to believe that armament is the solution, that enemies surround us, and that fear is the appropriate state of mind,” the statement continued. “More and more often, security is defined through borders, military might, and ‘external threats,’ while working conditions, housing, and social rights are ignored.”

In Rijeka and Zadar, demonstrators faced coordinated attacks by right-wing groups, including members of violence-prone sports supporter factions. In Zadar, where assaults were anticipated, police intervened to push back the attackers. In Rijeka, despite the city’s reputation for tolerance and progressive-leaning politics, participants of the 2,000-strong march were targeted with pyrotechnics and confronted by men dressed in black performing fascist salutes. Police allowed them to remain nearby under “supervision,” drawing strong criticism from the organizers.

A summer of attacks

This weekend’s demonstrations were sparked by a series of far-right attacks on ethnic minorities and cultural events since the summer, a trend linked to the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) government’s revisionist narrative. Right wing forces in Croatia, including HDZ, have built their narrative around inciting chauvinism toward the Serb population, sustaining anti-communist animosity, and, more recently, directing public frustration over falling living standards at immigrants.

Among the most visible examples of the changing climate this year was a mass concert by right-wing singer Marko Perković Thompson in Zagreb. His performances, often banned domestically and abroad, are associated with symbols glorifying the World War II Ustaša regime. The concert in Zagreb welcomed thousands and was more or less explicitly endorsed by several senior officials, including Prime Minister Andrej Plenković.

Prompted by such signals, right-wing groups, including organizations representing veterans of the 1990s war, disrupted festivals and cultural events addressing Croatia’s antifascist legacy or including Serb voices. The attacks included the obstruction of a festival in Benkovac, a town where most of the Serb population was violently expelled in 1995. There, groups of men blocked a children’s theater performance and threatened local journalists, eventually leading to the event’s cancellation. More recently, organized mobs targeted a Serb youth folklore performance in Split and attempted to attack the opening of an art exhibition organized by the Serb national minority in Zagreb.

These incidents are a reflection of ongoing processes led by the right. For more than three decades, Croatia has suffered a historical revisionism trend aimed at erasing the antifascist legacy of socialist Yugoslavia. Among other things, since the 1990s, HDZ and other conservative forces have reshaped school curricula to minimize or remove antifascist content. At the European level, political pressures to equate communism and fascism have further normalized alternative historical narratives that rehabilitate collaborators and demonize antifascist resistance. As a result, children and youth are pushed toward right-wing ideologies and offered fabricated historical accounts.

The organization Fališ, which successfully resisted right-wing attempts to cancel its annual festival in Šibenik this summer, linked these developments to reactions to last weekend’s protests, including comments claiming that Croatia was “occupied” between 1945 and 1991. This is “the result of a political perversion that turns liberation into occupation, and the defeat of fascism into a trauma,” Fališ wrote.

“It’s a complete reversal of reality, in which the antifascist becomes the enemy, the fascist becomes a patriot, and crime becomes identity,” they continued. “This logic erases all moral compasses and shapes a society in which truth is a nuisance and lies a political currency.”

Popular resistance challenges party silence

As alarms mounted over the rising violence, state authorities downplayed the danger and offered few concrete assurances to targeted communities. But the massive turnout over the weekend appears to have rattled government figures. Prime Minister Plenković attempted to recast the demonstrations as an effort to “destabilize” his administration, while Defense Minister Ivan Anušić, widely regarded as a leading figure of HDZ’s extreme-right wing, claimed: “This was a protest against Croatia, I would say pro-Yugoslav, maybe even more extreme than pro-Yugoslav.”

Liberal parties, including social democrats and greens, also failed to take meaningful action against the growing right-wing violence. Instead, Zagreb’s Green-led city authorities acknowledged that another concert by Perković would take place at the end of the year despite recognizing possible correlations between such events and far-right mobilization.

Against this backdrop of institutional silence and complicity, protesters promised to continue building resistance. “We stand united against fascism because violence over blood cells or skin color must stop,” United Against Fascism stated. “We will not accept Serb children being attacked, insulted, or intimidated for dancing folklore. We will not accept that the presence of national minorities is treated as a provocation, or that migrants are considered less human.”

“We stand united against fascism because silence is never neutral. Silence always serves those who profit most from darkness.”

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