The Croatian Journalists' Association (HND) once again warned on Tuesday of the dangers of the proposed amendments to the Criminal Code. It emphasised that they are unacceptable and called on MPs not to approve them.

The president of the HND, Hrvoje Zovko, said, among other things, that the draft law is “an attack on the democratic foundations and the journalistic profession, the public interest and whistleblowers”

“Once the parliament is dissolved, Andrej Plenkovic will calmly go into the election campaign, having cowardly foisted this law on MPs with dangerous intentions by hiding behind the provisions on femicide,” Zovko said, adding that MPs would thus be put in a situation where, if they vote against the proposed provisions punishing unauthorised disclosure of information from investigations, they would also vote against punishing femicide, as both are part of the same bill.

“The intention behind this bill is to hide cases of theft of public funds and various forms of violence and other dishonourable behaviour,” he said, adding that if “Lex AP” was already in place, the public would be in the dark about the numerous scandals in recent years that have led to the replacement of a number of Plenkovic’s ministers.

Ahead of the parliamentary vote on the amendments to the Criminal Code, which introduce a new criminal offence of unauthorised disclosure of the contents of investigative and evidentiary material, the HND published an open letter on Monday signed by 18 media outlets stating that it considers the amendments unacceptable and that they should be withdrawn.

The letter was signed by the editors-in-chief of the daily newspapers Vecernji List, 24sata, Jutarnji List and Slobodna Dalmacija, broadcaster N1 and leading weekly newspapers as well as several news portals.