The rally was organised by the initiative to protest against the law which bans public assembly within 100 metres of the headquarters of the parliament, the government and the Constitutional Court -- all on St. Mark's Square -- as well as the president's office.
The protesters, carrying banners reading "We didn't vote for helmets", "Upper town banned town" and "Why are politicians afraid of citizens", put a yellow band in front of a police cordon to symbolise the border by which they said civic rights were acknowledged.
At noon, shouting "Democracy is communication", a group of protesters, tried to break through the police cordon but after failing, sat down and continued to shout.
Speaking on behalf of the organiser, Marina Skrabalo told the press that the restrictive amendments, which parliament adopted on July 12, violated the fundamental constitutional rights of citizens to voice their opinion and public assembly.
Skrabalo said "the establishment of political discretion space" deprived democracy and civic freedoms of space. She dismissed the government's claims that the law on public assembly was amended out of security reasons.
"The government is saying that it is afraid of citizens, although it has no reason to be," Skrabalo said, adding that in 15 years of Croatia's independence many protest rallies had been staged at St. Mark's Square without even one physical incident, which she said showed that Croatian citizens knew how to protest peacefully.
She announced a new, bigger protest rally for September 15, when parliament is due to begin its autumn sitting, and said that after several trade unions, the Social Democratic Party and the Croatian Helsinki Committee on Human Rights, Matija Gubec too would ask the Constitutional Court to evaluate the amendments to the law on public assembly.