The parliamentary committee on Thursday unanimously called on the government to check the number and authenticity of signatures collected over two weeks in May by the civil initiative seeking to overturn the ratification of the Istanbul Convention through a referendum, and to check if the petition signatures were in line with the law.

Representatives of the initiative last week submitted to parliamentary officials lists with 377,635 signatures seeking a referendum to annul the ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on the prevention of violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention). They said they had met the target, having collected signatures from more than 10 percent of the electorate required for the referendum to be called.

“The people behind this initiative should be ashamed. Instead of investing their energy to improve the status of women, they are doing the opposite and want Croatia to take a step backwards,” said Social Democrat Pedja Grbin, deputy chairman of the committee.

He said that the campaigners had delayed the submission of signature lists for days during which the number of collected signatures had inexplicably increased.

“We have public testimonies by people saying that, contrary to the law, they were contacted after the signature collection campaign ended and asked to sign the campaign petition, which is unacceptable,” said Grbin.

He said that apart from checking locations where signatures were collected, the government should also check the period in which they were collected as well as contact people who spoke in public about the irregularities.

Committee chair Zeljko Reiner of the ruling centre-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) called on all MPs to think about ways to remove shortcomings in the referendum legislation that have surfaced in the referendum campaigns organised so far.

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