Roundtable Discussion: Media Freedoms and Human Rights in Croatia

Last Monday, December 11, the iDEMO Democracy Institute organized a roundtable discussion on the topic of Media Freedoms and Human Rights in Croatia in 2006 � The Case of �Glas Istre�. Ivo Banac, independent Member of the Sabor (the Parliament), Andrea Feldman, iDEMO Director and Snijezana Matejcic, reporter with �Glas Istre� and union activist, were the featured speakers.

According to the Istrian edition of Metro Express daily, the speakers used the case of suspension of journalists and editors of Glas Istra this Autumn, as well as the recent sanctions for HRT reporters over the airing of a disputed report by President Mesic he made in early 1990s, to point out at existing problems in Croatian media.

Acording to Ivo Banac, the media freedoms are especially under attack in smaller environments, where business, political and criminal interests are placed above the right to true information and in which the ending of monopolisation of media is hard to achieve. Furthermore, Banac believes that suspending reporters is no solution for the problem, having in mind that the background context doesn�t diminish, in any way or manner, the obligation of the reporter to present the story.

Andrea Feldman, invoking the recently published http://see.oneworld.net/article/view/141962 2006 Open Society Index>, emphasized the worrying fact that, in spite of the relative media freedom, over 30 percent of the citizens are inclined to support media censorship. According to Feldman, this is a direct result from the apathy and confusion of the lethargic citizens, which is fertile ground for solutions that benefit private interests.

Snijezana Matejcic discussed the problems of labour right of Croatian journalists.