be hate speech and perceived them as Christianophobes. She continued to serve as a Member of Parliament until 2011, when HSS only obtained one parliamentary seat. Petir remained in charge of the HSS County Organization of Sisak-Moslavina County, which she headed since 2002, and as vice-president of the HSS. Since 2008 Petir also served as HSS councilor in the Sisak-Moslavina County Assembly. During this period she was also the head of the Office for the Social Doctrine of the Church of the Sisak Diocese, and in her capacity as a representative of the Croatian Catholic Bishops’ Conference she took part in the Croatian Parliament's Committee on Human Rights and the Rights of National Minorities. In the 2013 local elections, she was defeated in her own hometown, in the municipality of Velika Ludina, where she managed to win only 27 percent of the vote. Member of the European Parliament At the 2014 elections, Petir was elected Member of the European Parliament for the joint list HDZ - HSS - HSP AS - BUZ - HDS - ZDS. She received the support of the leaders of the Croatian Peasant Party for her candidacy. She was a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality and the Delegation to the EU-Macedonia Joint Parliamentary Committee. In 2019, The Parliament Magazine granted her the "MEP Award" for Agriculture, Rural Development & Fisheries. Marijana Petir was the organizer of the exhibition "Cardinal Stepinac - Apostle of Hope and Love for God and People" which was held at the European Parliament on June 14, 2016. The Serbian Foreign Ministry sent protest letters stating that "Stepinac is responsible for cooperating with the Ustasha regime." As a member of the European Parliament, she advocated the release from a Serbian prison of Croatian war veteran Veljko Marić, convicted for war crimes. She also visited him in prison in December 2015. In May 2017 she took part in the "Walk for Life" in Zagreb, at which she was pictured together with convicted war criminal Dario Kordić. Following disputes with the new party leader Krešo Beljak, Petir left the HSS in 2017, continuing to serve as an independent MEP in the EPP group until 2019. References Living people 1975 births Croatian Peasant Party MEPs Women MEPs for Croatia MEPs for Croatia 2014–2019 People from Kutina 20th-century Croatian women politicians 20th-century Croatian politicians Representatives