Democracy and transparency non-governmental watchdog Gong held a press conference on Monday to comment on their decision to boycott of the state broadcaster HRT, with Gong's executive director, Jelena Berkovic, calling HRT's lawsuits against its own journalists and a number of other media outlets "absurd."

Last week, about 30 non-governmental associations launched a boycott of the state broadcaster HRT, in the wake of dozens of lawsuits that the broadcaster recently launched against other media outlets and the main journalists’ association in the country, as well as a couple of its own reporters, including association head Hrvoje Zovko, and the head of the association’s branch at HRT, Sanja Mikleusevic-Pavic, both vocal critics of the company management.

“We hereby call on everyone to turn down invites to appear on HRT programming, so that consequences of the management’s policies are visibly felt in its programming,” Berkovic said.

She added that the boycott would last until March 2 at least, when a large protests against HRT would be held in front of the Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND) building.

In its lawsuits, HRT had claimed that criticism by its own employees of the way HRT is run and managed constitutes a libel, and now seeks damages from both Zovko and Mikleusevic-Pavic.

Meanwhile, the journalists association called on other media outlets to call in lawsuits filed by HRT against them.

The association released an online counter which said on Monday that there were at least 36 ongoing lawsuits filed by HRT. These include two separate claims against the journalist association, as well as lawsuits against major newspapers Jutarnji List, Vecernji List, Slobodna Dalmacija, Novi List, and 24sata, and major news websites such as Index.hr, Net.hr, and T-Portal.

The total damages sought by HRT is around €300,000.

“The state of affairs at HRT is not normal, HRT has been occupied, and what we want is to try save it from being controlled by politics, as well as those at HRT who are abusing this situation,” Berkovic said.

“Everybody has the right to file lawsuits and seek damages for any wrongdoing, but it is absurd that HRT is suing its own reporters, or other journalist working in the media. The media law provides other principles for solve these things, namely through public corrections of false claims (that offended parties may seek from media outlets). On the other hand, HRT is well known to avoid publishing such corrections filed by others, and we ourselves have often been victims of them ignoring our requests for corrections. They should first get their own house in order, before we even begin discussing whether they have the moral right to go around suing journalists,” Berkovic added.

The boycott, announced jointly by around 30 NGOs last week, was in the meantime joined by major opposition groups such as the Social Democrats (SDP), the liberal Amsterdam Coalition alliance, and several other smaller parties from the left-of-centre and liberal side of the political spectrum.

The accusations commonly directed at HRT include allegations of biased right-wing and nationalist editorial policies, political control by the ruling conservative HDZ party, as well non-transparency in selecting projects funded by a portion of its funding.

In January, Belgian MEP Guy Verhofstadt called HRT’s lawsuits “unacceptable,” and on Saturday both the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joined increasing calls for HRT to drop the lawsuits, a day after the Croatian Film Director’s Guild had also joined the boycott.

A recent European Union report on media pluralism in Croatia pointed out the politicised appointments and dismissals in its public broadcaster HRT, and the report also mentioned what it called a “systematic political interference” in HRT management appointment procedures, IFJ said..

Later on Monday, MP Gordan Maras (SDP), banned HRT’s reporters from attending his press conference. The incident prompted the head of HRT, Kazimir Bacic, to issue an open letter to the media in which he described HRT as being targeted by “orchestrated attacks,” and said the lawsuits the company filed were launched for the purpose of “protecting its honour and reputation.”

Bacic was appointed to head the company in February 2017, after spending more than 30 years working in its technical services and production departments.

HRT operates four television channels and a series of radio stations, and is financed primarily through mandatory licenses paid by households and companies owning TV sets or radios, and its income from these fees totals around 1.2 billion kuna (€162 million) per year.

However, HRT viewership has been lagging for years behind Croatia’s two private-owned national channels, Nova TV and RTL.

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