ZAGREB, January 19, 2018 – Domino, the Zagreb-based nongovernmental organisation promoting LGBT and queer agendas, has filed a criminal report against the nongovernmental organisation “In the Name of the Family” and its leader Željka Markić on suspicion that they withheld relevant information when applying for a three-year grant approved to it by the National Foundation for the Development of Civil Society.
The Foundation approved the three-year grant in the annual amount of 139,280 kuna to the In the Name of the Family NGO, as evidenced by the Foundation’s report of 22 December 2017, although one of the conditions for the grant was that no criminal proceedings are being conducted against the applicant association or the person authorised to represent it, Domino said in a press release on Friday.
Domino recalls that the Zagreb Municipal Court handed down a non-final guilty verdict against Željka Markić on 16 January, establishing that Markić defamed Mima Simić, who had sued Markić for defamation.
Indisputably, criminal proceedings were under way against Željka Markić at the time relevant to the grant application, Domino says in the press release.
Having in mind that In the Name of the Family was given the subvention by the Foundation, this raises suspicions that the NGO had failed to provide information about the ongoing criminal proceedings against Markić, who is the person authorised to represent that NGO, and this amounts to fraud, Domino says.
It notes that the Foundation has high criteria regarding eligibility for grants and that some of those criteria are tolerance and respect for differences, whereas those values “have been gravely violated by the allotment of the grant to a civil society association that fights against those values, particularly in circumstances when there is suspicion that a criminal act has been concealed.”
Therefore, Domino considers In the Name of Family not to be eligible for grants awarded by the Foundation.
Markić was recently found guilty of defaming Mima Simić, after that writer and film critic sued Markić for slandering her in an interview with the Jutarnji List daily in 2016.
In the Name of the Family and Željka Markić are among the most prominent voices in the conservative circles in Croatia.
