The lesbian group Kontra said on Tuesday that it was worrying that the authorities in Zadar did not condemn a hate crime that occurred in that coastal city in October and that state institutions did not intend to prosecute the perpetrators appropriately.

Zadar police said last Saturday a criminal investigation of a physical assault on two US citizens in a night club in Zadar showed the crime was not motivated by hate.

The police investigated two Croatian citizens aged 19 and 33 on suspicion that, in the early hours of October 20, they physically assaulted two US citizens aged 24 an 25, lightly injuring one, while the other refused medical assistance.

After the criminal investigation, an information was filed against the two Croatians for disturbing the peace. The police said that the criminal investigation is continuing.

The two US citizens were African American soldiers and they were in Zadar on vacation. According to local media, they allegedly “openly showed they were gay.”

“The media description of the offence clearly indicates that police should have filed a criminal report with the competent prosecutor’s office or a report on the incident so that prosecutorial authorities could launch proper criminal proceedings,” Kontra said in a statement.

It strongly condemned the conduct of state institutions, saying that they treated socially dangerous and hate-motivated acts of violence the same way they would treat “fare dodging”, which, it said, resulted in the escalation of violence against minority social groups and violence in general.

It called on state institutions to adequately punish all perpetrators of violence motivated by hate based on sexual orientation and on the prime minister and ministers of the interior and justice to condemn attacks on and discrimination against LGBT persons as well as to see to it that a national programme for the prevention of violence and discrimination against LGBT persons was adopted.