President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic will not attend the official state-sponsored memorial ceremony at the site of the World War II Jasenovac concentration camp later this month, and will instead send the long-time chairman of the human rights watchdog Croatian Helsinki Committee (HHO), Ivan Zvonimir Cicak, as her representative.

Cicak confirmed the decision to N1 on Wednesday afternoon. Whether Grabar-Kitarovic might visit the site outside official protocol remains to be seen. After taking office in February 2015 she visited the memorial site in April that year, but outside official protocol or any media present, later publishing pictures of her visit online.

She did not make any appearance at the site in 2016 and 2017, personally appointing her representatives to attend the main ceremony attended by other state officials.

The main remembrance event has been boycotted since 2016 by associations of antifascists and ethnic minorities, on account of what they describe as state officials’ complacency towards the rise in the use of right-wing rhetoric and symbols in public.