Crackdown on Opposition Paper by Tudjman Allies
ZAGREB, April 11 (Reuters) — The Croatian government has hit a major independent newspaper with a $2.5 million fine in an apparent new crackdown on critical media by powerful rightists close to President Franjo Tudjman. The daily Novi List, based in the Adriatic port of Rijeka, was fined for using printing equipment imported from Italy at low customs rates reserved for minority groups.
Novi List, which has often written critically about the autocratic president and his HDZ party, was also found to have evaded taxes between 1992 and 1995, state authorities said. Editors told Reuterss on Thursday that the 13.7 million kuna ($2.5 million) fine could easily ruin Croatia's third largest newspaper with a circulation of 40,000.
"This is a fine that would bring us to the verge of bankruptcy. We believe that is exactly the intention of the government," said Miljenko Marin, a Novi List editor. He said Novi List would pay the fine to prevent its accounts being frozen. But newspaper lawyers felt it had violated no laws and would fight the charges in court.
Istrian Peninsula is Key to Ruling Party
In the October 1995 parliamentary elections, the HDZ lost its majority in Rijeka and the nearby Istrian peninsula where Novi List is particularly influential. Marin alleged that the HDZ wanted to destroy remaining independent media because its popularity has declined due to economic mismanagement and corruption ahead of important communal elections due this summer. Tudjman has also blocked a takeover of the Zagreb city government by the regional assembly's new opposition majority, raising questions about the quality of Croatian democracy."Local elections are approaching, and the ruling party can not hope to improve its performance if they are not in full control of the media," Marin said. "The bottom line is that the ruling party wants to destroy Novi List ... It is a part of an offensive to limit freedom of the press," said Slaven Letica, a former adviser to Tudjman.
Tudjman's History of Press Restrictions
In the past five years Tudjman has clamped down on other liberal media in Croatia. Split-based daily Slobodna Dalmacija was muzzled on charges that its privatisation was fraudulent and turned into a HDZ mouthpiece. The satirical weekly Feral Tribune was slapped with a punitive tax but had it lifted by court action.Letica said the Novi List affair pointed to a split in the HDZ between moderates striving to qualify Croatia for ties to the European Union after its break from communist Yugoslavia and a hardline nationalist "anti-European" lobby. "The faction causing this affair is indifferent to reactions from abroad," said Zarko Puhovski, another political analyst. "I think it is a token of a longstanding and very dangerous tendency within the ruling party."
Looking to the Future: A Survey of Journalism Education in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. A Freedom Forum report.
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