The Croatian Journalists Association (HND) and the Croatian Journalists Trade Union (SNH) sent an unsigned statement to the media on Monday demanding 'urgent amendments' to the law on the state broadcaster HRT and a change of its current leadership, state agency Hina reported.

In a joint statement, the HND and the SNH recalled that HRT director Kazimir Bacic was recently relieved of duty after being arrested on suspicion of corruption.

They said Bacic and his closest associates should have been dismissed long ago due to the “programming, personnel and technical devastation of the HRT.” They recalled that Bacic had been appointed by parliament “with the blessing of the HDZ and its coalition partners.”

They said Bacic was arrested on suspicion of a serious and “street” type of crime, yet that the government was downplaying “this shameful scandal” in public.

As HRT director, Bacic disposed with over HRK 1 billion in taxpayers’ money, and during his four-year term, the HND and the SNH issued 17 press releases about the lack of transparence in how that money was being spent, about the lawsuits filed against journalists and publishers who criticised the HRT, and about censorship, the press release said.

Those in power, however, didn’t care, it added.

For years, HRT employees have been hostage to the unacceptable practice of giving public television to the election winner and its coalition partners, the HND and the SNH said, demanding that the HRT Act be immediately changed because “it puts that public medium in the service of the political majority instead of in the service of the public.”

They demand that the HRT be independent of the politics in power and that its journalists be enabled to do their job freely, without fear of censorship.

The HRT must undergo a deep transformation and it must be run by honest and capable professionals who understand the purpose of public television, they said.

Hina did not report on any specific provisions in the current law on state media that HND or SNH want to see changed.