The LGBT rights NGO Dugine Obitelji ("Rainbow Families") said on Wednesday that the Supreme Court had sustained their appeal against a lower court ruling and found that the ultraconservative NGO Vigilare had "incited discrimination and harassment of LGBTIQ persons and their families."

Dugine Obitelji had sued Vigilare for launching a petition in May 2021 calling on the Ministry of Family and Social Policy to prevent same-sex couples from fostering or adopting children.

“Stop state television’s homo-propaganda. Let’s put an end to fake rainbows, let’s protect the children and the family!,” was the petition’s slogan.

Dugine Obitelji took the issue with the petition’s claim that “such an environment was harmful to children and contributed to the creation of unhealthy individuals and thereby an unstable society,” and that state television HRT was “using homo-propaganda to normalize things that are unnatural and perverted.”

The petition remained on the Vigilare’s website to this day. State agency Hina did not say how many people signed the petition to date.

The new Supreme Court ruling says that Vigilare has eight days to remove the petition from its website. Furthermore, the group will be banned from further publishing and using content that “in any way discriminates” against LGBTIQ persons, their families and children.

The decision came after the Dugine Obitelji’s appeal to the Supreme Court after Zagreb County Court earlier ruled that Vigilare’s petition did not in fact constitute discrimination, but rather merely “stated an opinion.”

Head of the Dugine Obitelji group, Daniel Martinovic, said it was “extremely important that the Supreme Court has recognized discrimination and ruled that the discriminating content must be removed.”

“LGBTIQ persons in Croatia continue to be exposed to frequent acts of violence, discrimination, and demonizing, and this ruling is a step towards making Croatia at least a somewhat progressive European Union member state,” he added.