The tenth parade of LGTBIQ people, Zagreb Pride 2011, started with its participants gathering in the city's Trg Zrtava Fasizma square at 2 pm, from where they went on a walk through the city centre, carrying rainbow flags, banners and balloons, their final destination being the Zrinjevac park, where speeches were held and two bands staged a concert. The programme at Zrinjevac ended around 6 pm.

Apart from members of the LGTBIQ community, also participating in the parade were members of the public, politicians and civil society activists, including Vesna Pusic of the Croatian People's Party (HNS), who was named Friend of Homosexuals of the Decade, HNS president Radimir Cacic, Mirela Holy of the Social Democratic Party, Ministry of the Interior spokesman Krunoslav Borovec, Zagreb lawyer Cedo Prodanovic, former interior minister Sime Lucin, and writers Predrag Matvejevic and Edo Popovic.

Participants in the parade were greeted in the central Trg Bana Josipa Jelacica square with a round of applause from members of the public who gathered there.

The Zagreb Pride is a picture of us, just as the Split Pride was a picture of us. The situation in Zagreb was not any better ten years ago, but things are moving forward and I would not be here if I didn't believe it, said Pusic.

The organisers of the parade said this year's event drew the most participants so far, between 3,500 and 4,000, while the police said there were around 2,000 participants at the most.

The police arrested 17 people - three were arrested for shouting insults at participants in the parade, seven for the purpose of establishing their identity as they did not have any ID on them, while seven people were arrested for carrying banners with inappropriate messages, including one participant in the parade.

The fact that there were no major incidents proves that the police have done their job of providing for security well, Zagreb Police Department spokeswoman Jelena Bikic said.

The number of police providing for security at the Zagreb Pride parade was the biggest so far. Officials at the Ministry of the Interior would not reveal how many of them were on the ground, saying only that there were more police than at last Saturday's Pride parade in Split, whose participants were guarded by close to 700 police officers.

The organiser of today's gay parade, the association Zagreb Pride, said in a statement their fight and resistance to every kind of fascism, nationalism, racism, machoism, heterosexism and violence was not over.