The Municipal State Attorney's Office in Split has indicted Jakov Ćaleta, president of the HDZ - Croatia's ruling party - in the Split neighbourhood of Blatine, and seven other men over the incident at the Days of Serbian Culture, an event organised by the Serb cultural society "Prosvjeta". The indictment charges them with violent behaviour and with violating the right to assembly and protest.

According to the indictment, on 3 November 2025 the eight men, acting together and by prior agreement, motivated by intolerance and hatred, took part in a protest against the event being held in the premises of the Blatine local community. Some twenty minutes before it started, more than 50 people gathered at the entrance. Inside were around thirty members of Prosvjeta, including children, as well as guests from the "Veliko Kolo" folk ensemble from Novi Sad.

One of the accused, Stipe B., according to the indictment, came to the entrance door and told Marko Veselinović of Prosvjeta that the event would not go ahead. "Go outside. If you leave peacefully, nothing will happen to anyone," he told him, while urging those gathered not to touch anyone. As the members, folk dancers and guests left the hall, unidentified people dressed in black began chanting "Za dom spremni!" (the Ustaša salute, "Ready for the homeland!"), "This is Croatia! Serbian trash! Kill the Serb!", clapping and raising their arms. The indictment states that this caused a feeling of humiliation among the people leaving.

The proposed sentence is a story of its own. Prosecutors are asking for eight months in prison for one offence and six for the other, combined into a single one-year sentence - suspended, with a three-year probation period. Translation: if the accused don't do anything new in the next three years, they won't spend a single day behind bars.

The legal classification has changed too. Right after the incident last November, prosecutors said they had questioned three Croatian citizens on suspicion of violent behaviour and of violating the freedom to express national identity out of hatred. At the time they said the suspects, together with at least 50 other people, had come to the hall motivated by intolerance towards members of the Serb minority, intending to disrupt the event. In the new indictment, the hate motive stays in the description, but has disappeared from the name of the offence.

Ćaleta claims he committed no crime, that no one from Prosvjeta or among the guests accused him, and that there was no violence. According to him, the crowd was provoked by the "extremely inappropriate" timing of the event, in the days before the anniversary of the suffering of Vukovar and Škabrnja, and as a councillor in the local community he felt it was his duty to check what was going on. He also disputes the timing of the charges: "This is certainly no coincidence. In the local community elections three days ago, the HDZ won power in Blatine, and the indictment is filed right now."

Children in the hall, a folk ensemble from a neighbouring country and a crowd at the door deciding who is allowed to show their culture - the Balkans have seen this scene too many times to read it as a local incident. The question remains: is a suspended sentence a message to those who stood outside the door, or to those who were inside?