An association of war veterans with PTSD staged a protest in Samobor on Sunday called "Stop hate speech and intolerance" at which they called on the mayor and Croatian Peasant Party president Kreso Beljak to resign over "belittling the veterans' sacrifice."

Participants strongly condemned Beljak’s statement that the veterans who protested in Zagreb for months a few years ago were “a few drunks,” saying that constituted incitement to civil intolerance.

According to organisers’ estimates, the Samobor rally drew about 1,000 protesters. They displayed a banner saying “Croatia is a state of war veterans, not thieves.”

“Beljak should immediately step down from all political posts,” said psychiatrist Herman Vukusic.

He warned about the high number of suicides and said two veterans died daily at the age of 53 on average.

“The goal is to stop the civil war that has been going on in Croatia for some time, but without bullets,” he said, calling for stronger punishment for those who spread hate speech.

Tihomir Trescec, president of the association, said the “hate rhetoric” was unacceptable. “Calling Croatian veterans a few drunks mustn’t be acceptable rhetoric in the public sphere. Among those few drunks were the parents, wives and children of killed defenders who are right to be outraged by such a statement.”

Trescec said there should be more tolerance in public statements, notably by politicians, who he said were public figures and should watch what they said.

“They don’t realise that some statements affect people deeply, notably veterans with PTSD,” he said, adding that veterans from all over Croatia had come to today’s protest.

Josip Mahovic, a former Samobor Brigade commander, said the political elite was a criminal organisation which did not care for the public but their own interest. He recalled that Veterans Minister Tomo Medved said he would move a law on the protection of the Homeland War that would envisage punishment for inappropriate statements.

Zeljko Kekic, a former agent of the infamous Yugoslav secret service UDBA, said many went into the Homeland War under the salute “For the homeland ready”, an Ustasha salute that was shouted at today’s rally.

“Who has the strength to ban you from saying it? We live in a grotesque state that we didn’t want,” Kekic said.