violence. The criminal code was amended to alleging that the clinic favoured fathers in allow ex officio prosecution of gender-based custody disputes even when the fathers have violence where the victim is unable or been found unfit. The authorities distanced unwilling to press charges, to criminalize themselves from the court decision. “revenge porn” and to broaden the definition The Croatian Journalists’ Association of “intimate partner” to include both former reported that there were over 900 active and current partners, in line with the criminal defamation lawsuits against standards in the Council of Europe journalists and media. The majority of the Convention on preventing and combating lawsuits were filed by politicians, public violence against women and domestic officials and even the public broadcaster violence (Istanbul Convention). itself. The Association warned that these The authorities, however, reported a lawsuits have an intimidating effect and pose continued increase in gender-based violence, a particular threat to smaller media outlets including rape and domestic violence. The and independent journalists. The European Ombudsperson for Gender Equality urged the Federation of Journalists urged the authorities to further strengthen prevention authorities to decriminalize defamation and and education programmes. ensure it is treated as a civil matter, and to SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS put in place a framework to prevent defamation lawsuits that are simply intended Access to sexual and reproductive services to silence criticism. was restricted by the widespread refusal of individual doctors and some clinics to 1. Croatia/EU: Strengthen Border Monitoring System – Effective perform abortions on grounds of conscience, Mechanism Needed: Independent, Broad Mandate, Adequate the prohibitively high costs of services and Resources (Index: EUR 64/4546/2021), 3 August poor regional coverage of authorized 2. “EU: New evidence of systematic unlawful pushbacks and violence at providers. This had a disproportionate effect borders”, 6 October on those with limited resources. 3. “Croatia: Damning new report slams systemic police abuses at country’s borders”, 3 December LGBTI PEOPLE’S RIGHTS In April, a court in the capital, Zagreb, backed the right of same-sex couples to CUBA adopt children. For the first time in over a decade, the Republic of Cuba annual Pride event in Zagreb in July was Head of state and government: Miguel Díaz-Canel marked by a series of physical and verbal homophobic attacks and the burning of a In the wake of historic protests in July, rainbow LGBTI flag. A journalist covering Cuban authorities imprisoned many Pride was among those attacked. Several hundreds of protesters, almost 700 of people were detained. whom remained in prison at the end of the FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION year. The authorities ramped up their machinery of control over freedom of Journalists continued to be the target of expression and assembly with physical threats and intimidation, both online and surveillance of human rights activists, offline, and faced gagging orders and artists and journalists, and by subjecting frequent lawsuits. them to house arrest, arbitrary detention, In September, a court in Zagreb issued a violations of due process and, in some temporary injunction against the news cases, ill-treatment, while also disrupting website H-alter, barring all reporting on a the internet. The economic situation local childcare clinic and its director; the continued to deteriorate and the US website had published a series of articles Amnesty International Report 2021/22 140