Croatian journalists and media outlets are currently facing over a thousand lawsuits, warned the panellists at the round table on media freedoms held in Zagreb on Wednesday.
The Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND) sent out a questionnaire on lawsuits to 90 media outlets in Croatia, and received answers from 18 of them, which are currently facing 1,163 lawsuits altogether.
Publications by the Hanza Media and Styria groups are most frequently the targets of claimants.
The public broadcaster, HRT, has alone brought 33 lawsuits, against their own journalists, as well as other reporters and the HND itself over their critical reports on HRT, demanding 2.17 million kuna (€293,000) in damages.
“A public media organisation which is supposed to protect media freedoms has become the main actor in silencing journalists,” said the HND vice-chair, Slavica Lukic.
The HRT management had sued HND for 200,000 kuna (€27,000) in damages, and the head of the HND’s HRT branch, Sanja Mikleusevic-Pavic, for 50,000 kuna (€6,730) for “gross harm to reputation”, after the HND’s HRT branch had published a press release in September last year in which they distanced themselves from the broadcaster’s choice of projects and criticised the alleged lack of transparency in decision-making processes.
HND chair, Hrvoje Zovko, said he held Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic responsible for the situation at HRT, because he tolerated such behaviour, and called on the HRT to drop all charges against journalists and media organisations.
The problem of the HRT has been brought to the attention of European media experts as well, said the secretary general of the European Federation of Journalists, Ricardo Gutierrez.
The results of an official EU report which measured the level of media pluralism across the EU along with Turkey, Serbia, and Macedonia, showed that Croatia is at the bottom of Europe in regards to editorial independence, Gutierrez said.
“The criteria about political interference in the newsrooms (showed that) Croatia is indeed worse than Turkey, Serbia, the Czech Republic and some other countries,” he added.
“The way some in power are dealing with this is really frightening, really worrying,” Gutierrez said.
Prime Minister Plenkovic, however, categorically denied on Monday that editors or journalists in Croatia were facing pressure from anyone in power, saying that the dramatic tone of the statements was unfounded.
“Let’s all calm down. Croatia is a free country according to the Freedom House report, the media is free. I don’t see, and I’m quite informed both in official capacity and privately, that someone would not be allowed to write whatever they want, that anyone is pressuring editors or journalists. I don’t know what all these evaluations are based on, who is giving them information,” Plenkovic said.
In the latest 2019 annual report compiled by the US democracy and civil liberties watchdog Freedom House, Croatia was classified as Free with a slight drop in its rating.
“I don’t need an international analysis to see whether Croatian media is free or not. I can vouch for it, as someone who reads. I don’t see a problem, there is more drama than necessary,” Plenkovic added.
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