The Electronic Media Council said on Thursday that it had received two complaints about the Index.hr portal's pop-up asking its visitors to say "if they are human beings or members of the HDZ", and that the complaints were submitted by the Croatian Democratic Party (HDZ) and one individual.

The Council, an independent media regulator, decided today to ask the Index website to explain its position on the matter.

On Tuesday, Index.hr launched a pop-up asking visitors to identify themselves either as human beings or HDZ members before proceeding further onto the website. The former option enables visitors to access the website, while the latter leads to a series of articles about corruption scandals implicating HDZ members.

This prompted the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) to announce legal action against the news website for incitement to hate or discrimination on the grounds of political or other convictions, noting that it expects the competent authorities and the HND to act accordingly.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Tuesday that he expected those who do not tolerate double standards to respond to “the discrimination and hate speech on the Index portal.”

Justice and Public Administration Minister Ivan Minister Malenica said on Wednesday that a discrimination and hate speech campaign had been under way lately and that everyone was called upon to build a society based on tolerance and inclusiveness.

“Over the past few days we have been witnessing a campaign based on discrimination and hate speech. We are all called upon to build a society based on tolerance and inclusiveness. Today HDZ members are being targeted, tomorrow it may happen to some other groups,” Malenica said, announcing some legal steps.

HND: Index.hr pop-up isn’t hate speech, but one can wonder if it is professional journalism

On the other side, the Croatian Journalists Association (HND) said on Wednesday that the contentious pop-up on Index.hr does not constitute hate speech but “a form of freedom of speech, expressed as satirical criticism of the government”.

The HND says in a statement that even though the post on the Index.hr website may be unacceptable, insulting or tasteless to a part of the public and may also raise the question of whether it constitutes professional, responsible journalism, it cannot be characterised as hate speech because it does not incite hate towards a group or members of a group on the grounds of their race, religion or ethnicity, origin, skin colour, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity or other traits.

Anyone who considers that in the case in question a breach of universal journalistic ethical principles, that is, the code of ethics of Croatian journalists, has occurred, should turn to the HND Ethical Council, the umbrella journalists’ association says.

Two lawyers specialised in media law, Vesna Alaburic and Vanja Juric, said that they did not see hate speech in this case.