UBHOS said in a press release that they were “unofficially and unlawfully” informed this week that the Ministry of Justice and Administration had issued a decision signed by Minister Ivan Malenica refusing to extend the association’s registration pursuant to the Associations Act because the association refused to remove “the military and Party of Rights slogan and salute ‘For the Homeland Ready'” from its statute.
UBHOS said that it was registered on 3 April 2001 and it was the “first and only one to legalise the legitimate use of ‘For the Homeland Ready’ as its salute.” That practice was later taken on by other HOS associations that emerged under the auspices of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).
UBHOS recalled that the HOS sign, insignia and stamp was legalised by the Ministry of Justice in 2001 during the coalition government led by the late Ivica Račan as prime minister and that it considered it to be its acquired and legalised right.
“No subsequent excuses by individual state government departments can change that legally because that would be an an act contrary to the Constitution, which prohibits retroactive application of regulations and laws and taking away acquired rights,” UBHOS underscored.
UBHOS added that this is not a Nazi salute or insignia because that does not derive from its content and meaning, regardless of its use in history, which was additionally confirmed by the Council for Facing the Consequences of Undemocratic Regimes on 28 February 2018.
The association claimed that the salute originally represents “an expression of resistance to the Serbian ideology of territorial expansion and hegemony,” and in that context it was used in the Croatian war of independence in 1990-1995 and the majority of HOS troops were not burdened with Ustasha nostalgia but used the salute because “a better salute did not exist in those circumstances and it still doesn’t exist.”
“Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, and President Zoran Milanović before him, with their irresponsible, sectarian and petty political actions and statements about this salute, are destroying the unity of the Croatian army and veterans, jeopardising the defence of Croatia’s independence and territorial integrity, unconstitutionally disputing the provisions of the Homeland War Veterans and Their Families Act,” UBHOS said.
In that way they challenge the rulings by the Military Court in Zagreb and the Supreme Court which in 1993 recognised the formation and activities of voluntary HOS units as legitimate defenders and an integral part of the Croatian Army, the UBHOS press release said.
