As is customary year after year, the city of Split celebrated Pride and Total Croatia News was there to record the festivities. Yesterday the streets of Split were filled with music and smiles, with dozens of people marching together with flags and banners, showing their unconditional support for the LGBTQ+ community. The high temperatures were not an obstacle, and the general feeling was one of genuine joy.
Photo: Jose Alfonso Cussianovich
It should be noted that the eleventh Split Pride, held yesterday, is also a peaceful march where attendees take the opportunity to protest discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community, manifested in various ways, such as the lack of rights, verbal and physical aggression, the invisibility of trans people, among many other forms of discrimination. Split Pride organizers decided yesterday’s event revolves around one essential question: ”do we have rights?”
The recently re-elected mayor of Split, Ivica Puljak, was present at the 11th Split Pride together with his wife, MP Marijana Puljak. (Photo: Jose Alfonso Cussianovich)
”Namely, in the past twenty years of LGBTIQ+ activism in Croatia (ten in Split), much has been said and discussed about the rights of LGBTIQ+ people. Some think that we have too many, some think that we have too few, as if it is about some special rights. And we actually just want to have the same rights as all other citizens of this country. We are not asking for special rights, but equal rights. Is that really too much?”, said the organizers.
”I pay the same taxes, but I don’t have the same rights”. (Photo: Jose Alfonso Cussianovich)
”We will list only some examples of discrimination that really sting our eyes. For example: We are left out of important national and local strategic documents, which marginalizes us and makes us invisible, health care for trans people in the Republic of Croatia is not regulated, we do not have access to medically assisted fertilization, we cannot donate blood, the Constitution prohibits us from the right to marry, and so on”.
Photo: Jose Alfonso Cussianovich
Around 16:30 pm, as previously announced on social media, people began to gather in Đarđin, in Strossmayer Park by the Golden Gate of Diocletian’s Palace. People of all ages, and even with pets, came to the park and were met by friends and other familiar faces. A large police force was present at the beginning, around the park, to make sure that those who entered it were precisely to join the celebrations and protests.
Many parents brought their children to the 11th Split Pride. (Photo: Jose Alfonso Cussianovich)
The initial environment featured music and merchandising stands. After 5:30 pm, with a large number of people already gathered, a spectacular dance number was performed, in which some attendees participated. Once finished, percussion instruments were heard and the organizers, with a long banner in their hands, marked the beginning of the march. The route of the march began in the Strossmayer park, where the protesters would walk the entire Tomislava street, until they reached the Marmontova, where they would turn left to go to the Riva, and from there they would take the Hrvojeva, to finally return to the Strossmayer park.
Pets were also present at the 11th Split Pride parade yesterday. (Photo: Jose Alfonso Cussianovich)
In the middle of the tourist season, visitors in the city of Split witnessed the parade, and in Tomislava, Marmontova, Riva, and Hrvojeva streets they stood on the sides, taking photos and recording videos, smiling, with their cameras. In Tomislava street, I heard a child ask his father: ”what is happening?”, to which he replied: ”they are marching for their rights”.
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