Tens of thousands attend ultranationalist singer Thompson’s concert in Zagreb: ‘A huge disgrace for Croatia and the EU’

Police said more than 450,000 tickets were sold for the event at the Zagreb Hippodrome, with streets closed and over 6,500 police officers deployed.

Thompson’s concerts have been banned in several European countries, including the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Bosnia, over accusations that he glorifies the fascist Ustasa regime that collaborated with the Nazis during WWII. Historians say the Ustasa systematically persecuted and murdered Jews, Serbs, and Roma.

Thompson denies promoting fascism, claiming his songs are about “love for God, family, homeland, and people.”

Serbia's Social Democratic Party leader Boris Tadic called the concert “a huge disgrace for Croatia and the EU,” condemning the nationalist symbols on display and the lack of meaningful EU condemnation.

“It is horrifying that in the 21st century, on European soil, concerts are being organized that glorify quisling fascist hordes and the killing of members of an entire people — in this case, the Serbian people. It is especially disheartening to see how many young people attended a concert by a man who greets his audience with a Ustase salute and how many of them follow the black-shirted iconography of the Ustase movement from World War II. Such images do not only send tragic messages about our relationship with the past, but also about our future,” wrote Tadic.

He also wrote that “it is even worse that there has been no substantial voice of protest from the EU, let alone any demand to ban such a Nazi-Ustase event, which has nothing to do with music.”

“With such an attitude, the EU undermines its own credibility — because if events like this can be freely organized on its soil, it loses the authority to lecture other countries outside the EU on values and politics. Europe must never forget that it was precisely on its soil that the most monstrous political movements in human history were born,” he added.

“Furthermore, such events only give a tailwind to the most malignant chauvinistic movements in other countries in the region, creating a domino effect that cancels out every act of reconciliation we have achieved in recent history,” Tadic concluded.

Former Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor wrote on X that because of her comments about the concert, she has been receiving threatening messages on her personal phone.

“I’m not worried for myself. But I am worried for the country and society. Thank you for the support — we’ve understood each other all these years,” Kosor replied on X.

“Imagine if, in Germany for example, the speaker of parliament and the prime minister bowed down to a singer who violates the constitutional values of that state. New Pandora’s boxes have been opened in Croatia, an EU and NATO member,” was one of Jadranka Kosor’s posts about Thompson’s concert.