The protest rally was organised by the Committee for Defence of Croatian Vukovar, comprising people who defended the town against Serb paramilitaries backed by the Yugoslav army during the war in the early 1990s, disabled war veterans, former inmates of Serb-run detention centres, children of defenders who were killed or went missing during the war, and officers of the Croatian armed forces and the police. They were joined by residents of Vukovar and people who came from throughout the country.

The committee believes that the time has not come yet for giving Cyrillic script the same status as Latin script, stressing that it would lead to ethnic intolerance and jeopardise the peace in the town. It wants Vukovar to be exempt from the Constitutional Law on the Rights of National Minorities or that the introduction of bilingualism in the town be placed under a moratorium of at least 50 years.

Committee spokesman Zdravko Komsic told the press before the rally began at noon that the committee had filed an application with the Constitutional Court on Friday to assess the constitutionality of the Constitutional Law on the Right of National Minorities. He announced a big protest rally for April in Zagreb.

The possibility of Cyrillic script being introduced in official use in Vukovar arose after the 2011 census revealed that Serbs accounted for more than 33 per cent of the town's population, which gives them the right under the Constitutional Law to use their language and script in official communication.

Government ministers, including Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic, have confirmed several times that the provisions of the Constitutional Law will be implemented in Vukovar, which is opposed by associations of veterans and people who suffered in the war.