The Ustaše, also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croatian, fascist and ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement. Its members assisted in assassinating King Alexander I of Yugoslavia in 1934, and went on to perpetrate The Holocaust in the Independent State of Croatia, killing hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma as well as Bosniak Muslims and Croatian political dissidents during World War II in Yugoslavia.
Ante Pavelić was a Croatian politician who founded and headed the fascist ultranationalist organization known as the Ustaše in 1929 and served as dictator of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a fascist puppet state built out of parts of occupied Yugoslavia by the authorities of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, from 1941 to 1945. Pavelić and the Ustaše persecuted many racial minorities and political opponents in the NDH during the war, including Serbs, Jews, Romani, and anti-fascists, becoming one of the key figures of the genocide of Serbs, the Porajmos and the Holocaust in the NDH.
Catholic clergy involvement with the Ustaše covers the role of the Croatian Catholic Church in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a Nazi puppet state created on the territory of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia in 1941.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in Croatia have expanded since the turn of the 21st century, especially in the 2010s and 2020s. However, LGBT people still face some legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. The status of same-sex relationships was first formally recognized in 2003 under a law dealing with unregistered cohabitations. As a result of a 2013 referendum, the Constitution of Croatia defines marriage solely as a union between a woman and man, effectively prohibiting same-sex marriage. Since the introduction of the Life Partnership Act in 2014, same-sex couples have effectively enjoyed rights equal to heterosexual married couples in almost all of its aspects, except adoption. In 2022, a final court judgement allowed same-sex adoption under the same conditions as for mixed-sex couples. Same-sex couples in Croatia can also apply for foster care since 2020. Croatian law forbids all discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression in all civil and state matters; any such identity is considered a private matter, and such information gathering for any purpose is forbidden as well.
The Catholic Church in Croatia is part of the worldwide Catholic Church that is under the spiritual leadership of the Pope. The Latin Church in Croatia is administered by the Croatian Bishops' Conference centered in Zagreb, and it comprises five archdioceses, 13 dioceses and one military ordinariate. Dražen Kutleša is the Archbishop of Zagreb.
Croatian Pure Party of Rights is a far-right political party in Croatia founded in 1992. The party claims to be an ideological descendant of the identically named right-wing Serbophobic historical party which was active in the early 20th century and which advocated the right to self-determination for Croatia at the time when it was part of Austria-Hungary and Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
Vladimir "Vlado" Gotovac was a Croatian poet and politician.
Slaven Letica was a Croatian author, economist, commentator and politician.
Miroslav Rožić is a Croatian right-wing politician. As a former vice-president of Croatian Party of Rights (HSP), he served as a representative in Croatian Parliament between 2001 and 2007. He was previously a member of the Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS) and is currently a member of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS).
The Croatian Defence Forces were the paramilitary arm of the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP) from 1991 to 1992, during the first stages of the Yugoslav wars. During the Croatian War of Independence, the HOS organised several early companies and participated in Croatia's defence. At the peak of the war in Croatia, the HOS was several battalions in size. The first HOS units were headed by Ante Paradžik, a HSP member who was killed by Croatian police in September 1991. After the November 1991 general mobilisation in Croatia and the January 1992 cease-fire, the HOS was absorbed by the Croatian Army.
Far-right politics in Croatia refers to any manifestation of far-right politics in the Republic of Croatia. Individuals and groups in Croatia that employ far-right politics are most often associated with the historical Ustaše movement, hence they have connections to Neo-Nazism and neo-fascism. That World War II political movement was an extremist organization at the time supported by the German Nazis and the Italian Fascists. The association with the Ustaše has been called "Neo-Ustashism" by Slavko Goldstein.
Za dom spremni! was a salute used during World War II by the Croatian Ustaše movement. It was the Ustaše equivalent of the fascist or Nazi salute Sieg Heil.
Zagreb Pride is the annual LGBTIQ+ pride march in the city of Zagreb, Croatia, which first took place in 2002, as the first successful pride march in Southeast Europe. Zagreb Pride organizers say their work was inspired by the Stonewall Riots and the Gay Liberation Front. It is self-identified as LGBTIQ+ march and therefore in 2003 changed its name from Gay Pride Zagreb into Zagreb Pride. The Pride was organized by a volunteer-based and grass-roots Organizing Committee that was formed each year. A new organization founded in 2008 as a non-governmental organization Zagreb Pride that also registered the use of the name as a brand. The organization is a member of InterPride, EPOA, IGLYO, ILGA-Europe and in 2010, together with Lesbian Organization LORI and Domino, it was the founding member of Croatian first national LGBT association, Center for LGBT Equality. Pride receives funding from the City of Zagreb and a number of international human rights organizations and embassies.
The Party of Rights was a Croatian nationalist political party in Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia and later in Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
Split Pride is the LGBT pride march in the Croatian city of Split. Split was the second city in Croatia after Zagreb to get its LGBT pride, with the first taking place on the 11 June 2011.
Zlatko Hasanbegović is a Croatian politician and historian who has served as a member of the Croatian Parliament since 2016. He served as Minister of Culture in the cabinet of Tihomir Orešković from 22 January to 19 October 2016. Hasanbegović is also a member of the Zagreb Assembly and one of the founders of the Independents for Croatia party.
The Independents for Croatia is an inactive conservative and right-wing populist political party in Croatia. The Party was founded on 1 June 2017, and officially registered with the Ministry of Public Administration on 2 June 2017.
2014–2016 Croatian war veterans tent protest was 555 days long war veterans protest, often dubbed in Croatia as The Tenters. The protests were initially aimed against Ministry of Croatian Veterans deputy Bojan Glavašević and Minister Predrag Matić himself, however the protesters subsequently changed their demands and started demanding the resignation of centre-left Prime Minister Zoran Milanović and then President Ivo Josipović. The protests escalated in May 2015 when a group of protesters breached the riot police cordons in Zagreb Upper Town and barricaded themselves inside St. Mark Church, where they again clashed with the police. At the same time another group of protesters near the central tent blocked the traffic and brought out gas bottles on Savska street which they apparently threatened to blow if the police refused to back off from the church. After both Josipović and Milanović lost the elections in 2014 and 2015, the protests gradually calmed down and in April 2016, with the new minister taking over the Veterans Office, the tent was dismantled, formally ending the protest.
Hrvoje Klasić is a Croatian historian. Since 2003, Klasić is a professor at the Department of History at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb. His work focuses on contemporary Croatian and world history. Klasić is a critic of attempts at rehabilitation of the World War II fascist Ustasha movement in the country. He is ambassador for the European Association of History Educators.
At the end of World War II in 1945, members of the fascist Croatian ultranationalist and genocidal Ustaše regime from the collapsed Nazi puppet state of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) fled from the Balkan region to avoid imprisonment and execution at the hands of the Yugoslav Partisans. With the help of Western authorities, who now viewed the fiercely anti-communist stance of the Ustaše favourably in the emerging Cold War, thousands of members of the regime were allowed to migrate to other countries, including Australia.
