Croatia

http://www.freemedia.at/wpfr/croatia.htm 

Croatians went to the polls at the beginning of the year to elect both a new parliament and a new president after the death of old strongman Franjo Tudjman in December 1999. Tudjman’s legacy with regard to the media was one of incessant muzzling of the press through the courts and economic measures. When he died, he left hundreds of lawsuits pending against publications and journalists. In addition, the state broadcaster Croatian Radio-Television (HRT), the primary news source for the majority of Croatians, was a mere mouthpiece of the ruling party. After the elections, however, it appeared as if the late president’s strong-arm tactics would not be the preferred choice of the next generation of politicians.

The International Election Observation Mission, which monitored the 2-3 January parliamentary elections, pointed out that, "the news and editorial coverage of HRT significantly favoured the ruling party, both in quantitative terms as well as through an overwhelmingly positive coverage of government officials representing the ruling party and a negative coverage of the opposition". The presidential elections, however, with the second and final round on 7 February, was considerably, "fairer and more balanced".

Appreciating both the international and domestic pressure to change the situation for the press, the newly elected government swiftly announced that media reform would be high on its agenda.

The centre-left bloc led by the new Prime Minister, Ivica Racan, which ousted the nationalists declared that one of the first targets of reform was HRT. The main goal is to turn the TV station into a publicly accountable television service, one of the conditions the European Union has put forward for starting cooperation talks with Croatia. The new President, Stipe Mesic, also expressed his commitment to a free press. "The biggest problem in Croatian media is auto-censorship and I believe reporters themselves must fight for a way out of it. We will provide them with all the support as only free journalism can guarantee a free society", Mesic told the news agency HINA.

Mesic also said, ''I'm not going to use my political influence to install editors in any media". These words were later backed up by action on the part of the president. Responding to allegations in the media that he had acted as an informant for Croatian intelligence, he said such reports were "unprofessional" but that ''it was a problem for newspapers and their readers [and] not my problem''. The new Constitutional Court also made changes.

In February and April it scrapped articles on defamation and libel from the law on public information and the penal code. In May, it changed an article dating from 1996 which forced district attorneys to prosecute any individuals suspected of libelling the president; the speaker of the parliament; the prime minister, or the chief justices of the Supreme and Constitutional courts. Unfortunately however, there were also attacks against journalists recorded in 2000.

On 14 September, an unknown man threatened Obiteljski radio editor Robert Zuber with a gun, saying that the editor had expressed anti-Croatian sentiments. The incident took place at the offices of the Zagreb-based radio station. The man left when another person entered the building but told Zuber that he would be back.

Goran Flauder, a journalist with the weekly Nacional was attacked on 26 September, by unidentified men who hit him with a plank. Flauder, who sustained serious head injures from the attack, said that he had received an anonymous telephone invitation to come and collect "some papers concerning some events of 1991" prior to the attack. "I think that it was a planned assault due to my journalistic work", Flauder said. He also said that he had recently been writing about crime in the region of Osijek, and that he had received many threats prior to the incident.

On 15 September, police launched an investigation into allegations by Andrej Kreutz, a photographer with the daily Vecernji list, that a police officer tried to confiscate his camera as he was taking pictures of five persons suspected of having committed war crimes.

RSF reported that, on 18 February, a French journalist, Laszlo Liszkai, was detained by Croatian authorities for extradition to Hungary. Liszkai, who is of Hungarian origin, had been sentenced to a two year prison term in Budapest after being found guilty of fiscal fraud. His colleagues claim, however, that the order to arrest him was directly connected to his work. Liszkai authored a book in which he made allegations against the Hungarian police, accusing them of providing refuge to international terrorist Carlos, in Budapest.

On 4 December, police detained several people for questioning in connection with an alleged attempt to create an illegal cartel intended to establish a monopoly over the Croatian media. The scandal broke when the new daily Republika accused Ninoslav Pavic, co-owner of Croatia’s largest publisher Europa Press Holding, and several others of signing a, "Contract for Joint Appearance in the Market" allegedly aimed at limiting competition and establishing control over the Croatian media sector. Police released Pavic two days later, saying that did not have enough evidence to keep him detained. Pavic vehemently denied the accusations.

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