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CROATIA
The Constitution provides for
freedom of thought and expression, specifically including
freedom of the press and other media, speech, and public
expression, as well as the free establishment of
institutions and public communication; however, the
Government controls or influences much of the print
media, controls most of the electronic media (in
particular, television), and influences and manipulates
the judiciary. All this, combined with the
Government’s continued harassment—through job
loss or banishment from the airwaves, overt censorship,
intimidation, and criminal prosecution—of those
journalists who criticize the ruling party, stifles many
of these freedoms in practice. The Government
maintained an unofficial campaign of harassment of the
independent media throughout the year, and some 300
criminal and 600 civil prosecutions of journalists are
ongoing, most brought by government officials or their
close relatives or associates. The law gives the
public prosecutor the right to appeal an acquittal,
thereby potentially exposing journalists to double
jeopardy. During the second half of the year, the
Ministry of Interior acknowledged accusations that the
Agency to Protect the Constitutional Order was tapping
the telephones of some independent journalists (among
others) but denied that there was any impropriety in
either its actions or motivations, which the Ministry
claimed were justified under the Constitution.
Despite
continued domestic and international protest, the
Government took no steps to revise articles of the Penal
Code that authorize the criminal prosecution of
journalists who publish “state secrets” or
insult the honor or dignity of the President, the Prime
Minister, the Speaker of Parliament, or the Chief
justices of either the Supreme Court or the
Constitutional Court. In April the former editor in
chief of Globus, Davor Butkovic, was acquitted of
criminal liability in a suit brought by 23 ministers,
including the Prime Minister, for citing in an article a
report by a foreign company that alleged corruption in
the Cabinet. The state prosecutor appealed the
acquittal, as he has in the ongoing criminal liability
case against the Feral Tribune for slandering the honor
of the President. Further, under the law the
publisher of the offending article may be subject to a
separate civil suit for causing mental anguish.
Individuals
may criticize the Government, although not always without
reprisal. Lawsuits brought against a leading human
rights activist and a prominent politician in 1997 for
the “dissemination of false information with the
intent to incite public instability” remained
unresolved. In bringing these suits, the public
prosecutor failed to acknowledge that these individuals
(and others) made similar statements in previous years
with no ensuing public disorder.
The Government
(through the privatization board) and, in particular,
businessmen with close ties to the HDZ enjoy a virtual
monopoly on printing and distributing newspapers and
magazines. Fees of 20 percent of gross sales
(payable in advance), combined with slow payment (or
nonpayment) of proceeds from the distributor to the
publication and prompt payment requirements for the
printer, have caused acute cash flow problems for many
independent publications. The slow pace of the
judicial process, makes it extremely difficult for these
publications to seek timely redress of their payment
difficulties in the courts. Journals and
publications also complained that they had little control
over where their publications were sent, with large
quantities at times being sent to remote villages,
leaving the bigger, urban markets undersupplied.
The ruling
party’s control of the electronic media is
pervasive. The majority party in the Sabor
(currently the HDZ) controls 5 of the 9 seats on the
Telecommunications Council, the government body that
allocates or revokes private radio and television
concessions. Concession fees are inordinately high,
but are not paid by Croatian State Radio and Television
(HRT). Decisions by the Council are arbitrary, lack
transparency, and are generally biased in favor of
proprietors backed by the HDZ. For example, in
Rijeka the opposition party mayor and his backers were
unable to get a concession for a local television station
because the only frequency the Council was prepared to
issue in that area belonged to another
“station”—one that had never broadcast in
the 2 years that it held the concession—in direct
violation of the law, which mandates broadcasting within
2 years of frequency issuance. However, the
stalemate finally ended when a frequency was awarded in
October.
The HRT is the
only national network in the country and is the main
source of news for approximately 90 percent of the
population. It broadcasts on three national
television and radio channels. Technically under
the control of Parliament, the HRT is, in practice, run
by the ruling HDZ Party; its director is a prominent
member of the Party. The Government controls the
state network through the HRT Council which, like the
Telecommunications Council, also is dominated by the
HDZ. The HRT Council directly supervises operations
and editorial content of state-run radio and television,
effectively restricting access by opposition parties to
criticize government policies and consistently preventing
even the semblance of impartial reporting during election
campaigns. A new law on the HRT was adopted by
Parliament in October, which reduced the number of
Members of Parliament (M.P.’s) on the HRT Council
from 14 of 18 to 10 of 23. However, this minor
modification did virtually nothing to address the
fundamental problem of government control over the state
television network because Parliament retained the
ability to nominate and confirm all other appointments to
the Council.
Both public
and private radio and television stations coexist,
although independent broadcasters are forbidden by law
from either broadcasting nationally or from
“networking” to achieve national
coverage. Revenue collection is also greatly skewed
in favor of the HRT, which receives subsidies from
government taxes on television (accounting for some
two-thirds of the HRT’s gross annual revenues), as
well as some 80 percent of advertising revenue.
These subsidies create an unfair advantage for the HRT
over any independent television station that tries to
compete, as the independents’ ability to purchase
programming, etc., is far less than that of the
HRT. Similar problems exist in radio
broadcasting. The enforcement arm of the Ministry
of Finance, the financial police, often is used by the
Telecommunications Council to shut down stations deemed
too critical of the Government. The financial
police may enter any premises without a warrant and, at
any time, demand access to an organization’s
financial records. The punishments meted out by the
financial police and the Telecommunications Council often
far exceed the seriousness of the infraction. For
example, TV Moslavina, known for its
“provocative” news stories, was shut down in
May when it moved to a new location and failed to renew
its license with its updated address. Government
influence over the court system exacerbates these
problems. Journalists who sought reform of the HRT
from within routinely were silenced and in many cases
taken off the air while still on the HRT payroll.
In July a new director of HRT was appointed who
reinstated several of these journalists in
November. However, censorship of their new program
“One Plus One” commenced almost
immediately. In December the HRT director cut a
scheduled segment on an opinion poll that was
unflattering to the ruling party on the grounds that
airing the poll “could create precedents which HRT,
as the most influential media outlet...cannot
afford.”
Foreign
newspapers and journals were available in larger urban
areas throughout the country, although cost makes them
prohibitively expensive for most persons.
While academic
freedom generally is respected, scholars reported that
they were reluctant to speak out on political
issues. Some scientists believe that the Government
exerted subtle pressure on them through its control of
research funds.
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