ZAGREB, February 21, 2020 – Participants in a two-day conference on fascism and anti-fascism in present-day Europe, which started in Zagreb on Thursday, condemned the strengthening of extreme right politics and cases of undermining democratic values in Europe.
Addressing the event, which brought together some 50 participants from 15 European Union member states and a some countries in Croatia’s neighbourhood, the leader of the SABA RH antifascist association in Croatia, Franjo Habulin, said that the re-emergence of fascism is being seen and systematic attempts to subjugate the values of anti-fascism, under the pretext of stepping-up condemnation of communism and equating Communism and Fascism.
Habulin insists that it was the Communists who played significant roles in many movements of resistance, and praised Communists in Yugoslavia for launching the movement of resistance and for ensuring its victory.
He also said that the fact that Communism is “an ideology and mindset that was never realised in the world” was being incessantly ignored.
Habulin criticised the media, education system and religious communities for downplaying the criminal character of Fascism, with the tacit approval “from some democratic governments and with the active participation of the EU.”
At the start of the conference, the International Federation of Resistance Fighters the acronym of which is FIR presented its statement in which it condemns the Hanau massacre in which a 43-year-old extremist killed at least nine people as well as his own mother and then committed suicide in that German town near Frankfurt.
The FIR association extended its condolences to the families of the victims and urged politicians, NGOs, activists and anti-fascists associations to send an unequivocal message that racist violence should be prohibited.
On Friday, the second day of the conference, participants in the event are expected to adopt a declaration.
The organisers of the Zagreb conference invited representatives of anti-fascist associations from 25 European countries, including 15 EU member-states to attend the conference.
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