There were 12 attacks on reporters in Croatia in 2020, the fewest reported of all Western Balkan countries, showed a survey presented by the Croatian Journalists' Association (HND) on Wednesday. However, HND added, Croatia reported the highest number of SLAPP lawsuits against journalists.

Lawsuits are a new method of attacking journalists, along with direct physical assaults, said HND head Hrvoje Zovko, adding this gives rise to concern as the attackers are not adequately punished and there is no response by the relevant institutions to them.

“We live and work in an atmosphere in which journalists are labelled as the main culprits (for everything). Failure to prosecute attacks on journalists and lynching campaigns against them by the country’s leaders, who often verbally attack journalists, incite the numerous attacks that we witness,” Zovko said.

The survey on media freedoms and safety of journalists was conducted as part of the Safe Journalist regional platform, which advocates media freedoms and safety of journalists in the Western Balkans.

The researchers used three groups of indicators – the legal protection of journalists, the work status of journalists, and their safety. Today’s presentation focused on safety.

12 attacks on journalists, including two death threats

Survey author Monika Kutri said that of the 12 attacks on journalists in 2020, five were threats and acts of harassment, two were death threats and five were actual physical assaults.

Kutri said that since 2014 there had been 72 attacks on journalists, with female journalists having been the target in most of them, including physical attacks.

She noted that state officials often insulted female journalists, however, the insults were not recorded in the survey if they did not constitute a threat.

Kutri said that the duration of court proceedings in cases concerning attacks on journalists was problematic, citing in that context the case of journalist Dušan Miljuš, who was beaten up in 2008 yet his case had still not ended up in court, noting that in other cases in the past few years trials lasted between one and two years.

Croatia: Fewer attacks, more lawsuits

The survey did not cover lawsuits against journalists as a type of attack because they are not recognised as a threat, however, it does note that in comparison to other surveyed countries, Croatia had the least attacks against reporters in relation to its size and the number of journalists. On the other hand, it had a large number of SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) lawsuits against journalists, which are seen as an ‘elegant’ way of discouraging and financially exhausting reporters.

Zovko said that the number of SLAPP lawsuits against journalists in Croatia was not declining and that 924 lawsuits had been filed against 18 media outlets alone, with the number of lawsuits exceeding 1,000 in reality.

As regards other surveyed countries, Kutri said that the situation was most difficult in Serbia. Since 2014/2015, there have been 318 attacks on journalists in Serbia, 188 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 137 in Kosovo, 71 in North Macedonia, 55 in Montenegro, and 17 in Albania, with the latter having been covered by the survey only in the last two years.

One of the researchers’ conclusions and recommendations is that the coronavirus crisis has shown that freelance journalists are the most vulnerable group of journalists because they do not have permanent work contracts to protect them and that that group of journalists should be strengthened as well as that a mechanism should be established to systematically monitor SLAPP lawsuits.