The Case of Hringur’s Finger, Part II

Earlier this year, we told you the curious saga of Hringur’s finger. Hringur, a settler in Liberland, gave the middle finger to a tree. But not just any tree. This tree had an inconspicuous green camera on it, one of many installed illegally by Hrvatske Šume, the Croatian Forestry Service. Why illegally? Because the Šume has no jurisdiction in Liberland.

We know these tree cameras belong to Hrvatske Šume. But, as luck would have it, at that particular moment, the camera was being monitored by a Croatian Border Police officer. The officer, apparently taking it personally, decided that Hringur’s little gesture wasn’t aimed at the Forestry Service but was instead a direct insult to the Border Police. How dare he?

Hringur was apprehended within minutes of flipping off the camera. The case was rushed to court, which—unlike with other cases—immediately sprang into action, scheduling a hearing the very same day. Hringur’s attorney bought some time by requesting a Danish translator, and the hearing was postponed until the next day.

Even with the slight delay, it wasn’t easy to find Hringur a lawyer, but we managed. Hringur also received a preliminary injunction banning him from entering Liberland. Apparently, extending his middle finger was such a serious offence that the court’s translation even claimed it was a “delict against the basis of civilisation” (which probably meant something closer to “bad behaviour” in plain English). The initial fine? A modest EUR 650, suggesting this was no mere slap on the wrist.

But wait, there’s more! Hringur lost the case, and—because why not—the fine was increased to a whopping EUR 3000. Naturally, we appealed... and lost.

Let’s recap the absurdity:

• The Croatian Forestry Service has no jurisdiction over Siga and thus no business being there.
• The Croatian police has no business being there either.
• Even if we generously accept Croatian legal overreach (constituting a de facto invasion of a foreign territory, but hey, nobody’s perfect), the Border Police only have jurisdiction to protect the Schengen borders, not to ponder every little gesture made at a tree camera.
• Hringur had no idea a police officer was watching.

In short:

• There’s no proof Hringur intended to insult the police.
• In fact, it’s clear he didn’t. His middle finger was meant for the Forestry Service.
• Hringur had way more reasons to dislike the Forestry Service than the police (namely, for stealing and/or destroying  a lot of our stuff).

Now, let’s get to the legal part. Some minor offences can be prosecuted for negligence—like when someone fails to act as a “reasonable” person would. But this isn’t one of those cases. When it comes to insults, intent matters. 

Picture this: A foreigner, unfamiliar with Croatian customs, comes along, and, in his culture, the middle finger is a gesture of praise—“You’re number one!” If he showed it to the police, would he be guilty? Of course not! Why? Because the intent to insult is missing. 

It’s the same for Hringur. His target wasn’t the police but the Šume. His intent was simply to vent, but had it been to insult, it would clearly have been to insult Šume. The intent matters; the intent is missing, and this should have been dismissed on the point of the missing intent alone.

Even if we ignore this crucial fact, let’s pretend we live in a world where people are guilty of insulting without intent (which banana republic is this again?). 

Would Hringur have known that a police officer was sneakily watching him through a Forestry Service camera? No, of course not! What kind of dystopian state would expect citizens to assume there’s a policeman behind every camera, lurking in every shadow? 

This would strip away legal certainty and personal freedom, turning people into fearful subjects of an all-seeing Big Brother state—something that might have flown during Tito’s Yugoslavia, but that ended over 30 years ago.

So even a “reasonable” person would not be expected to know not to do what Hringur had done. Even the hypothetical and unreal “insult by negligence” would not have been provable before a court of law. But apparently, none of this mattered to the courts of the Republic of Croatia.

But wait, there’s more! After the first verdict, both the Court and the Public Prosecutor’s office confirmed that there is no civil or criminal jurisdiction—misdemeanours included—over Gornja Siga, where Hringur was standing when he made his fateful gesture. 

The only connection to Croatia was that the Forestry Service happened to be spying from across the border. However, none of this jurisdiction business and the fact that the deed happened outside of Croatia mattered in the slightest, and the verdict was confirmed guilty, and the final fine was 3000 euros.

We’re now taking this to the Constitutional Court because we won’t let this travesty of justice go unanswered. If there’s a “crime against the very basis of civil society”, it wasn’t Hringur’s middle finger. It was the farce of a legal process that followed. And we will defend the rule of law in Croatia—even against the very Croatian state organs that should be upholding it.

We have a well-prepared case built on over a hundred incidents involving people guilty of nothing more than daring to dream of building something beautiful in Gornja Siga—a land explicitly rejected by both Croatia and Serbia. Over ten people from non-EU countries have been banned, along with no less than five EU citizens. The police made use of provisions reserved for the most dangerous criminals, applying them to innocent people and stripping them of any meaningful appeal. We are now taking these cases to the EU authorities themselves.

The Hringur case should have made this clear, but when you consider the other violations, it becomes obvious: Liberlanders are facing a systematic campaign of defamation and denial of basic rights. This shouldn’t be happening in 21st-century Europe. We will make sure it stops and that justice is finally served. Stay tuned for more!