The 23rd Pride Parade of the LGBTIQ+ community, individuals, and rainbow families marched through Zagreb on Saturday under the slogan "We stood up and stayed!" and with the message: "To all who wish we were gone, we say: It won't happen and it won't succeed!"

There was strong police security and the parade passed without incidents.

A protest and celebratory gathering was held in Ribnjak Park in the city centre, where, according to police estimates, there were around 2,000 people.

Attendees witnessed the union of two women in a life partnership, marking 10 years since the enactment of the Life Partnership Act, during which nearly 500 life partnerships have been formed.

A Pride proclamation read at the gathering says that lesbians, gays, non-binary, trans and bisexual people, intersex individuals, and the entire queer community are rising against attacks on their freedoms, rights, lives, families, and bodies.

“And this won’t be the first time. We stood up in the first Pride Parade in a completely homophobic country, surrounded by hordes of bullies. We stood up against unjust laws, transphobic ministers, homophobic MPs, lying female journalists, and street thugs. We stood up and stayed. Every time, every year, and it will always be so,” the proclamation says.

The LGBTIQ community is the largest, most socially visible, politically influential, and culturally active minority in Croatia, the proclamation says. “There are more of us than all national minorities combined… And we don’t have either a newspaper or a cultural centre. We will remain loud and united until we have what we deserve: an LGBT centre and a queer newspaper.”

Franko Dota from the organising committee announced that ‘Pride’s Life Partners of the Decade’ are four individuals, including incumbent President Zoran Milanovic, under whose government the Life Partnership Act was passed, and Arsen Bauk, the then minister who advocated for the law. They will be awarded special charters next month.

The parade was supported by numerous citizens, some politicians from the centre to the left, and representatives of the city government, which is a co-organiser of this year’s Pride, led by Mayor Tomislav Tomasevic.