It is the second human rights activists’ alert in the year 2009 unfortunately without any proper response or elicited activity on behalf of the Government or the Croatian Parliament.
As reported from Human Rights House Zagreb, this time an eminent and brave editor lost her position and her show together with all the members of her investigative team.
On November 13th, 2009, editor in chief of the Croatian Public Television Hloverka Novak Srzic sanctioned and replaced Ana Jelinic who was the editor of one of the best shows dossier.hr, due to a story on corruption and organized crime in Croatia that was prepared and broadcasted by the dossier team.
The story on corruption was actually an interview with the author of a soon to be published book on corruption and organized crime in Croatia and several investigative journalists who elaborate clues that might lead to very influential politicians. Hloverka Novak Srzic’s justification of the sanction executed on editor Ana Jelinic was that it had been unprofessionally edited since, in her opinion, no story on corruption should be presented to the audience without concrete proof of committed crimes!
Croatia is unfortunately internationally known for its omnipresent and undisturbed corruptive practices that involve high level politicians, media owners, businesses, institutions. Although every annual Progress report published by the EC repeatedly highlights this issue, no true effort or political will to conduct counter action has been witnessed so far.
On the contrary, whistlers, human rights activists and journalists who try to expose criminal activities and actors get fired, are degraded, receive threats or are even severely beaten.
Such practices should be finally stopped!
Therefore, Human Rights House Zagreb invites all international institutions and organizations to support us and send a letter of protest to the Croatian Government, Croatian Parliament and Croatian Journalist Association that fails to find means to protect its members.
For more information, please contact Sanja Sarnavka ( sanja.sarnavka@babe.hr ), the president of the Board of HRH Zagreb.
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