Gay Today: World

Croatia: First Gay & Lesbian Group Founded

By Ales Pecnik

Rijeka, Croati--Croatia's first gay and lesbian organization was founded February 5 in Rijeka, creating the first independent gay and lesbian organization in the nation. Rijeka is Croatia's third largest city. Previously, gay and lesbian groups had existed within other organizations but had remained nearly invisible.

Mainstream Croatian social prejudices erupted half an hour before the announced start of the meeting

Zoran Dragicevic, a member of PGS (an influential Croatian political party) called activist Aldin Petric and told him bluntly that the meeting couldn't take place in Rijeka's political parties' building.

Petric had come out publicly last year with a lawsuit against Croatia's Ministry of Defense following the army's firing of him for being gay.

Approximately 50 invited people--members of the initiative board, journalists, photographers and other organizations' representatives --moved to club Palach and held their founders meeting there.

Petric, immediately elected as the new organization's president introduced the Croatian organization's plans for 1999:

It will initiate a campaign against intolerance, organize an international gay and lesbian camp in August in Pula or Umag (towns on Istra's coast; Istra is a peninsula and the "disobedient" Croatian province), and network with gay and lesbian organizations from other parts of the former Yugoslavia.

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One question asked if the candidates "normally call games of chance 'gaming' or 'gambling'."

Petric expects no (co)sponsorship from the Croatian government but says he's had positive discussions with the executive director of the Croatian Soros Foundation.

According to Petric, further complications over organization's registration are possible, despite the fact that its charter was co-written by Vesna Alaburic, a well-known Croatian lawyer and Croatian journalists' association's advocate. The group's registration must be approved by the Ministry of the Interior.

The ruling Croatian party, HDZ, also took time to exhibit traditional intolerance--an hour before expected beginning of the foundation meeting HDZ organized a lecture about AIDS that failed to attract attendees. v This, said Croation gays and lesbians by way of ridicule, was "to let us know that they don't know that AIDS is not a 'gay' disease."

Š Ales Pecnik, 1999.