London - Croatia's
president on Monday condemned the burning of an effigy of two
men and a child at a festival weeks after the country's highest
court ruled that same-sex couples could foster children.
Zoran Milanovic said the burning of the effigy, which
depicted two men kissing, at a festival in southern Croatia on
Sunday was "inhumane and totally unacceptable".
Organisers of the event in the town of Imotski "deserve the
strongest condemnation of the public because hatred for others,
intolerance and inhumanity are not and will not be a Croatian
tradition", Milanovic posted on his verified Facebook page.
The Imotski carnival organisers did not respond to a request
for comment via their Facebook page.
Croatia legalised gay sex in 1977, but the country remains
deeply conservative, with more than 80% of the population
adhering to Catholicism, according to a 2011 census.
Almost two-thirds of Croatians voted in a 2013 referendum in
favour of a motion that enshrined marriage in the country's
constitution as between a man and a woman.
Same-sex couples can enter into legal partnerships, but the
country has stopped short of allowing gay marriages.
Gay couples do not have the right to adopt, but earlier this
year, Croatia's highest court ruled that they could become
foster parents.
Croatia has a long tradition of burning effigies of
politicians and other public figures as part of its countrywide
carnival celebrations, and it is not the first time the
festivities have sparked controversy.
In February 2018, party-goers at a festival in Kastela, a
popular destination for tourists on the Dalmatian coast, set
fire to a replica of the country's first children's picture book
depicting same-sex parenting, "My Rainbow Family".
Brian Finnegan, a spokesman for LGBT+ rights organisation
ILGA-Europe, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the
burning of the effigy represented "another sign of the rise in
hate in Europe that is being fuelled by anti-LGBT rhetoric".
"This is a clear expression of hatred," Finnegan added.