Protesters Claim Croatia Government Stifles Press Freedom

Around 200 journalists and activists joined a protest walk from the headquarters of the Croatian Journalists' Association, HND to the culture ministry in central Zagreb on World Press Freedom Day on Tuesday to raise concerns about the media situation in the country.

The protest came before an international media conference organised by the HND, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the US embassy in Zagreb, which focuses on press freedom, with a special emphasis on the situation in three EU states, Poland, Hungary and Croatia.

HND president Sasa Lekovic warned that "media freedoms [are] constantly deteriorating" in Croatia, highlighting the role played by controversial culture minister Zlatan Hasanbegovic, who has slashed state funding for non-profit media.

"There is no positive forecast for media in the future, things can only get worse. Even if Mr. Hasanbegovic was not the minister anymore? this is not a solution, since the entire government acts in the same way," Lekovic told BIRN.

Hasanbegovic managed to largely eliminate state funding for non-profit media by dismissing the council responsible for financing the sector in January, announcing that the money will go into book publishing instead. He also cut the ministry's support to left-wing media in April.

Sasa Kosanovic, a reporter from the state broadcaster, Croatian Radio-Television, HRT, who was fired last week for his role in filming a documentary about war crimes committed during Croatia's 1995 military operation Storm, also attended to the protest.

"Besides the fact that this government attacked the media as the part of an ideological war, which is led by Hasanbegovic, who first attacked independent media and the independent scene as well, my personal reason for...