HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------Campaign group condemns fine against Croat paper
ZAGREB, March 13 (Reuters) - The International Federation of Journalists condemned on Wednesday a court fine which might put the Croatian independent weekly Feral Tribune out of business and urged Croatia to change its laws on journalism.
The weekly, whose editors were often harassed during the nationalist regime of late President Franjo Tudjman in the 1990s, was ordered to pay a 200,000 kuna ($23,750) fine earlier this month over a 1998 lawsuit put before a Zagreb court.
The court found the paper guilty of "inappropriately presenting judgments" and ordered it pay the fine as compensation for mental anguish suffered by a lawyer and an art custodian because of highly critical articles at the time.
The court also froze the weekly's bank account.
"We are calling for a review of the legal regime that has brought Feral Tribune -- a standard-bearer of independent journalism during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s -- to the brink of extinction," the journalists' group (IFJ) said.
"The laws...are archaic, intolerant and should be rendered obsolete in any modern democracy," IFJ General Secretary Aidan White said in a statement. "They have been used in a piece of spiteful legal victimisation that should be condemned internationally."
One of the Feral articles cited in the lawsuit called a Zagreb lawyer anti-Semitic and pro-fascist for claiming the Jews had brought the Holocaust on themselves "by robbing and insulting other nations."
Croatia's stringent libel law, which was heavily criticised by the West, was repealed when reformers gained power in 2000. However, journalists can still be brought to court in private civil lawsuits. The 1998 lawsuit predated the repeal.
"While European legislation does envisage civil lawsuits, the content of the sentence and its explanation certainly raises eyebrows," a Zagreb-based Western diplomat told Reuters.
Croatian human rights activists have launched a campaign to save the weekly, known for satirical and often obscene photographs and biting comments about those in power.
10:06 03-13-02
--------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST
==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
