Commenting on this case during the government's session in Zagreb on Friday, PM Sanader entrusted his deputy Jadranka Kosor to set up a working group in charge of a strategy for the development of civil society.
A public discussion is being unnecessarily held about a document which does not exist, the premier said referring to harsh criticism which some civil society associations levelled against Cigelj over a draft strategy for support to civil society in Croatia.
Sanader said that such a draft did not exist and that the government had not seen that document.
For the government there is no strategy for the development of civil society, Sanader said, adding that his cabinet supported the development of civil society.
Sanader said that he bound Deputy Prime Minister Kosor to hold consultations with associations in an attempt to establish a working group in charge of drafting a strategy for civil society.
However, some civil society organisations are insisting on Cigelj's resignation due to her interview in the Catholic weekly in which she expressed her positions on feminism and homosexuality. They also ask for her dismissal due to what they say is the non-transparent work of the office at whose helm she is and due to her incompetence.
Cigelj reportedly claimed that some civil society associations were groups promoting anti-Croatian sentiment.
If it is true that Cigelj said something like that, then the Government should relieve her of her duty, officials of the strongest opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) said today.
Croatian Ombudswoman for Gender Equality Gordana Lukac Koritnik also expressed disapproval of some statements Cigelj made about women's human rights
In her interview Cigelj said that she advocated rights of women wherever they are threatened, but that there are no women's or men's rights but only human rights.
Regarding homosexuality, she said that this was a private matter of every individual and that she finds unacceptable "aggressive homosexuality which is turning into a political option and a model which breaches the rule".
Cigelj is also known in the public as a vocal promoter of rights of victims of Serb-run camps in northwestern Bosnia. Before the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cigelj lived in the Bosnian town of Prijedor where she was detained in a Serb-run camp in the summer 1992. After she survived the detention she was one of the first women to speak about torture and rapes to which women had been exposed in those camps. She also testified in the trial against former Yugoslav and Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, before the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.