Croatia: Journalism under fire

Last week?s arrest of freelance Croatian journalist, Zeljko Peratovic, suspected of having unclosed state secrets on his blog has hit the national news in a big way, especially in view of the coming elections next month.

The arrest, that was described as an ?inadmissible event? by the Croatian Helsinki Committee for human rights in their public declaration on October 23rd, has fuelled the debate over the Croatian media?s freedom of expression, or lack of.

The arrest
Peratovic, who used to write for Globus, a Croatian political weekly newspaper and Vjesnik, a national daily newspaper, was arrested on Wednesday 17th October after his house was searched and his computer and cd?s were confiscated. The same day police forces raided the offices of the Croatian TV station, TV Nova, that own the server Peratovic used to publish his blog, demanding that the suspected contents be cancelled.

Petratovic was released the day after his arrest, but declared that he was not clear about which state secrets he was being accused of publishing. In his blog,?45 lines?, he had in the past posted articles about police shadowing after he and other five journalists had been followed by the police for having written about Ante Gotovina, a General whom the Hague accused of war crimes, and who at the time had not been placed under arrest. The other two articles that were deleted from his blog were about contact between the British secret service and the Croatian ones, but these had been taken directly from texts that had already been published on the weekly newspaper Nacional. ?The articles I published had already been published elsewhere, all I did was copy and paste them onto my blog? declared Peratovic.

Criminal investigation
Peratovic likes to cover ?hot? stories. It was he who provided the most detailed coverage of Milan Levar, the witness who testified at the Hague and who was murdered in 2000 by a mysterious explosion outside his house. He has also covered many stories about Croatian organised crime and has had much contact with informers from the Croatian underworld. Recently he has written about the president, Stjepan Mesic, the premier, Ivo Sanader and the head of the Croatian secret services Tomislav Karamarko. He has also published testimonies that accuse the Croatian Parliament?s vice president Darko Milinovic of being involved in the Gospic war crimes.

Peratovic?s arrest has quickly become an electoral tool. The social-democrats (SDP), who, according to the surveys are the most likely to win the elections, have declared that: ?As in the end of the 90?s the forces of law and order have thrown themselves upon the journalists instead of directing their attention towards those who hand out classified information to journalists from within the government?.

The answer from the politicians
The Croatian premier, Ivo Sanader, declared that: ?my point of view is well known and I will repeat it again: I am for a complete freedom for the media, and as far as I and my government are concerned there should be no restrictions of any kind?. The premier has promised an investigation into the reasons for the journalists arrest and has added that he is ?always on the side of the journalists?.

Zoran Milanovic, the SDP leader, replicated that ?Sanader is for the freedom of the press, but he loves arresting journalists?.

The Croatian Order of journalists has reacted strongly to the arrest of one of their members. They consider it ?a drastic attempt to threaten the journalistic freedom of Croatia and as a form of oppression towards the freedom of the media and journalists in general?.

According to a report published by Freedom House, an organisation dedicated to reporting on the state of freedom and democracy in the world, Croatia held the 87th place last year, together with Brasil, East Timor and Perù. Freedom House researchers warn that events like the arrest of journalists, as in the case of Zeljko Peratovic, will not help the country to gain a higher position in the report for 2007.