The appalling scenes on the streets of Split are a manifestation of hatred and intolerance. Antisemitic chanting and the glorification of Nazism are unlawful and contrary to European values.<\/p>\n
Calls for violence against Jews, chanting the name of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz and invoking Adolf Hitler are expressions of antisemitism that violate the dignity of Holocaust victims and their families, spread hatred and intimidate.<\/p>\n
Similar incidents elsewhere do not diminish the seriousness of the events in Split. Football rivalry and associating a rival club with Jewish identity cannot justify calls for violence and the invocation of the Holocaust. Such chants in football make antisemitism more acceptable in wider society, which is dangerous and unacceptable.<\/p>\n
This outrageous incident has rightly prompted public condemnation, which must be followed by judicial proceedings. Only clear and firm public condemnation, accompanied by judicial proceedings and sanctions, sends an unequivocal message that spreading hatred is not permitted. Such open manifestations of antisemitism and glorification of Nazism must have no place on the streets of the Republic of Croatia.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, instead of diminishing and coming to an end, such behaviour is spreading more freely and intensifying. This is unsurprising given the inadequate response by senior officials and the competent authorities to similar behaviour in the past. The Ombudswoman has previously warned of this following the singing of Usta\u0161a songs glorifying figures from the Second World War and the raising of arms in the Nazi salute accompanied by the chant \u201cZa dom spremni\u201d.<\/p>\n
When the message about what constitutes unacceptable and unlawful expressions of hatred and glorification of the darkest periods of history is insufficiently clear, their escalation should come as no surprise. In every instance of unlawful conduct, action by the police, the State Attorney\u2019s Office and the courts is paramount. These institutions bear the greatest responsibility for sending a clear message about what is lawful and what is not. However, the social climate is also shaped by clear messages from the highest-ranking officials, or their absence, which can influence whether phenomena such as the glorification of Nazism escalate or decline.<\/p>\n
Sporting events, football clubs, athletes and supporters influence children and young people. They can contribute to respect for every person\u2019s dignity, but they can also bring hatred into the public sphere. Clear condemnation and concrete action must demonstrate that antisemitism and the glorification of Nazism have no place in stadiums or on city streets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The appalling scenes on the streets of Split are a manifestation of hatred and intolerance. Antisemitic chanting and the glorification of Nazism are unlawful and contrary to European values. Calls for violence against Jews, chanting the name of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz and invoking Adolf Hitler are expressions of antisemitism that violate the dignity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":15085,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ombudsman.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Logo.bez_.naziva.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ombudsman.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ombudsman.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ombudsman.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ombudsman.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ombudsman.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ombudsman.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24668,"href":"https:\/\/www.ombudsman.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24667\/revisions\/24668"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ombudsman.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ombudsman.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ombudsman.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ombudsman.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}