Several thousand people from all over Croatia arrived in Zagreb on Saturday for a protest against mandatory COVID-19 certificates and epidemiological restrictions in force.

The Zagreb city police department said earlier in the day that the protest had not been announced.

“I believe scientist Gordan Lauc”, “No to blind belief in authorities”, “Live and let others live” were some of the messages on banners carried by the protesters who gathered in two squares, Trg Francuske republike and Trg žrtava fašizma, before starting their march towards the city's central Trg Bana Josipa Jelačića square.

Participants in the protest, which is also called the Silent White March on social networks, want the government to abolish COVID-19 certificates, which prove one's vaccination against or recovery from COVID-19 and which have become obligatory for employees of government and public institutions as well as everyone else entering those institutions.

Zagreb police said the organisers of the protest had not asked for permission to stage the event so the police would film its participants.

Before the protest, some of its participants said that citizens who do not have COVID-19 certificates are being unconstitutionally and unlawfully excluded from public life and prevented from going to work or school.

“It is our civic duty to oppose discrimination against any person, social divisions and the use of this discriminatory certificate as grounds for that,” reads a statement whose authors identify themselves as citizens, participants of the Silent White March.