While the Czech Republic will punish the promotion of communism with up to 5 years in prison from January 2026, and Ukraine up to 10, Croatia has no specific law explicitly banning communist insignia. CitizenGO and the Homeland Movement are calling for change.
In a growing number of European countries, decisive decommunization policies have been implemented in recent years, and Croatia remains an exception in this regard. While laws across Europe ban or strictly restrict the symbols of communist regimes, in Croatia events where communist insignia are openly displayed continue to be held, including the recent 'Zagreb School of Communism' organized by the Revolutionary Communist League.
As early as 2009, the European Parliament adopted the Resolution 'On European Conscience and Totalitarianism,' which clearly states that communist, Nazi, and fascist regimes deserve equal condemnation, and calls on member states to ban and sanction their symbols. According to Narod.hr, Croatia has ignored this call.
Ukraine completely banned communist symbols through its Decommunization Law, adopted in April 2015. The law explicitly prohibits the public display, production, and dissemination of symbols of the communist and Nazi totalitarian regimes, including flags, coats of arms, and emblems of the Soviet Union, the hammer and sickle, the five-pointed red star, as well as portraits, monuments, and quotes of Soviet leaders such as Lenin and Stalin.
In Ukraine, standard public display or distribution of communist insignia can result in a sentence of up to five years in prison, and property may be confiscated. When such an act is committed by an organized group, an official, or when symbols are disseminated through the media, the sentence increases to ten years in prison. This violation of the law is considered a criminal offense, not merely a misdemeanor.
The Czech Republic has introduced the strictest reform to date, placing communism entirely on the same legal footing as Nazism. On January 1, 2026, a new amendment to the Criminal Code, Article 403, came into force, prescribing a sentence of 1 to 5 years in prison for establishing, supporting, or actively promoting the communist movement.
Publicly displaying symbols such as the hammer and sickle, the red star, or portraits associated with the communist regime, as well as publicly singing 'The Internationale,' is punishable if it expresses support for a totalitarian ideology. The Communist Party, which is not in parliament, has called for the repeal of this law, but the Czech Constitutional Court rejected their lawsuit at the end of 2025.
In December 2025, the Polish Constitutional Court issued a ruling completely banning the activities of the Communist Party of Poland because its ideology violates the constitutional prohibition on totalitarianism. Poland also has strict regulations requiring local authorities to remove all street names, squares, and public monuments that evoke communist figures or organizations.
In Hungary, there is a conditional ban on the use of communist symbols. In 2013, parliament amended the law banning totalitarian symbols after the Constitutional Court annulled an earlier general ban. Today, symbols such as the swastika, the hammer and sickle, and the five-pointed red star are illegal only if their display disrupts public order and peace, with exceptions for scientific, educational, artistic, or informational purposes.
Latvia legally prohibits the display of symbols of the former USSR at public and mass gatherings, while Lithuania, under its Law on Public Assemblies, strictly bans Nazi and Soviet symbols. Estonia is preparing a new law to remove Soviet symbols from protected cultural-historical buildings, and the police often ban public gatherings where Soviet and Russian military insignia are displayed.
In Croatia, there is still no specific law that explicitly names and prohibits specific totalitarian symbols. The display of such insignia is regulated by general legal provisions that can penalize the disruption of public order, incitement to hatred, or discrimination. In practice, however, insignia from the Homeland War, such as the HOS inscription or the salute 'Za dom spremni,' are more often reported and punished, while the five-pointed red star and symbols of the former state are not considered problematic enough.
The Homeland Movement has offered hope for potential change by establishing a Committee to Determine the Fate of Victims of Crimes Committed Immediately After World War II, led by historian Vlatka Vukelić.
The active citizen participation platform CitizenGO, as early as November last year, asked Croatian authorities to ban communist symbols and the glorification of communism.
"One symbol of repression is still openly celebrated in Croatia, while others are rightly banned. Across the country, the radical left freely displays communist insignia at protests, gatherings, and political actions. At the same time, Nazi and fascist symbols have always been banned. Such an approach creates a legal absurdity and clearly shows that in Croatia there are victims whose pain is recognized and victims whose pain is silenced. This double standard deeply wounds families who lost their loved ones in communist prisons, pits, and camps," said representatives of the CitizenGO platform.
From CitizenGO, they reminded that the communist regime in Croatia left behind tens and hundreds of thousands of killed, missing, and persecuted people.
"The brutal methods of torture, liquidation, and suppression of political opponents must not be relativized, silenced, or presented in a romantic light," the petition states.
Within the European Union, there is deep division on this issue. Countries in Eastern and Central Europe, due to their experience of Soviet occupation and repression, view communism and Nazism as two equal totalitarian evils and continuously push at the EU level for a broader ban on communist symbols. In Western European countries such as France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, there is no general legal ban on communist symbols.
