Za dom spremni
)[5][6] In October 1941, state minister of education and culture Mile Budak issued strict rules regarding the mandatory usage of the salute.
[7] As British historian Rory Yeomans notes, the Ustaša authorities were disappointed with the low acceptance of the salute among the population, even in the areas where the new regime enjoyed support.
[9] As a part of their new cultural and language policy, the government took an effort to replace "hello" when answering the phone with "prepared" (though, somewhat ironically, the former is and was used in Germany of which NDH was an ally).
[10] State Intelligence and Propaganda Bureau (DIPU) wanted to assess how many people used the salute by calling them randomly on the phone and recording whether they answered with "hello" or "prepared".
[22][23][24] In 2013, Croatian international football player Josip Šimunić led the chant four times with the crowd in Zagreb after Croatia beat Iceland to qualify for the 2014 World Cup finals.
"[25][26] In August 2015, a number of conservative and right-wing public figures and Catholic clergy members (including most notably Sisak bishop Vlado Košić and auxiliary bishop of Zagreb Valentin Pozaić) signed a petition and an open letter to the President of Croatia Grabar-Kitarović and to the chairman of Croatian Democratic Union Tomislav Karamarko, calling for the introduction of the salute as the official salute of the Armed Forces of Croatia.
"[29][30] Croatian mathematician and academic, controversial far-right writer Josip Pečarić, published a similar book titled "Diary Under the Sign of Za Dom Spremni".
[31] In November 2016 in Jasenovac a plaque commemorating members of Croatian Defence Forces killed in action 1991-2 was unveiled, containing CDF emblem with the salute "Za dom spremni".
[32] This caused an outrage as Jasenovac is the site of the biggest Ustaša-led concentration camp and a memorial area for 80,000 ethnic minorities, resistance fighters and political opponents of Ustaša regime that perished there 1941-5.
Jewish, Serb, Roma, and WWII veteran organisations as well as opposition parties boycotted the government-led annual commemoration in April 2017, protesting the fact that Croatian government has not removed the inscription.
"[38] The authors further opined "when this slogan is used as a part of commemoration of the soldiers who fought in the Homeland War, it is impossible to separate the positive value of patriotic struggle for Croatia's independence from revisionist acceptance of the legacy of fascist NDH and the persecution of the Serbian minority as a legitimate political goal.
"[39] In 2011, a municipal court in Knin dismissed the case against a craftsman who sold souvenirs which contained the salute Za dom spremni.
The court ruled that accused didn't wear clothing or souvenirs with slogan that encourage national, racial or religious hatred, but instead he was selling them.
The court ruling cited defendant's claim that "Za dom spremni is an old Croatian salute known throughout history" as a part of the defense statement, however, it didn't state any opinion on that subject.
Due to his chant at a football stadium, Josip Šimunić was sentenced for "incitement to hatred based on racial, ethnic and religious grounds, as the salute was used in NDH and is a manifestation of racist ideology.
[45] However, in June 2020 High Misdemeanor Court's judiciary council decided on appeal that singer Marko Perković Thompson has not committed an offense against public order by using the salute in his song.
For instance, during a house search and seizure of an illegal weapon in June 2017 in Kistanje near Knin, the police have removed the shirt with the salute from a man who was wearing it and charged him with the offence against the public order.
[49] Nevertheless, the Council for Dealing with Consequences of the Rule of Non-Democratic Regimes presented a proposal on 28 February 2018 for legal amendments to allow the chant's usage in "exceptional situations" under strict conditions, sparking controversy.
[51] Local authorities and security agency in Austria have noted that the salute and other Ustaša symbols are undesirable during the annual Bleiburg commemoration in Carinthia.
[54] In the spring of 2018, many federal politicians across the party spectrum supported a stricter enforcement of the Austrian laws against hate speech and Nazi insignia.
[63] The words Za dom were previously also used in Pavao Ritter Vitezović's 1684 work Odiljenje sigetsko (Siege of Szigetvár),[64] in the opera Nikola Šubić Zrinski (Nikola Šubić Zrinski) composed by Ivan Zajc in 1876,[65] and several poems published in the mid-19th century issues of the Danica, the literary magazine published with the early Narodne novine.
