For the first time, Ministry of Culture will not provide minimal financial assistance to Zagreb Pride events.

Zagreb Pride announced on Friday that they had been denied financial support by the Ministry of Culture for the 16th annual Pride and related cultural events during the Month of Pride, which they consider to be “a consequence of ideological staffing decisions in cultural councils made by former Culture Minister Zlatko Hansanbegović”, reports Večernji List on December 23, 2016.

“This is the first time since the Zagreb Pride event has started applying for financial support that our long-standing supporter, the Ministry of Culture, has denied us the support.” They point out that the Ministry of Culture has so far supported the event “with symbolic amounts of between 10,000 to 20,000 kuna, which is a third of the total budget of the Pride and Pride Week, while the rest of the revenues consists of funds received from the City of Zagreb and donations by citizens”. “Such balanced budget makes Pride and accompanying events sustainable, open and free for all”, added the organizers, reacting to the decision on the allocation of funds from cultural programmes in 2017.

They announced that next year the event will be expanded – instead of Pride Week they will organize Month of Pride, starting from 17 May, the International Day Against Homophobia, and lasting until 10 June, when the Pride parade itself will be held.

During this period, numerous cultural, public, art, performance and other activities will take place which will promote LGBT community. The organizers point out that the events are “supported and visited by more people than the number of votes received by Zlatko Hasanbegović at all elections together”. “It is obvious that the refusal to provide symbolic financial support by the Ministry of Culture is a form of political pressure on Zagreb Pride, which during the last year openly and fearlessly criticized and condemned moves and decisions taken by now former Culture Minister.”

They stated that the results of the public competition show that other LGBT programmes had also not received support from the Ministry of Culture, “which demonstrates an attempt by the former Culture Minister to make LGBTIQ persons disappear from the public space and make us invisible”.

"We will continue to defend rights, honour and dignity of LGBT people of Zagreb and Croatia. As long as there are our supporters, the Pride will go on, no matter who is at the helm of the Ministry of Culture”, they concluded.

Zagreb Pride is a queer-feminist and antifascist organization which is committed to the creation of an active society of solidarity and equality, free from gender and sexual norms and categories, as well as any other kind of oppression.