NEW PRESSURE ON THE PRESS

The uncertainty resulting from the announced changes in the Law on Information, the fear caused by a series of uncompleted court proceedings against publishers with astronomic sums involved, were additionally highlighted by the newest restrictive epistle to "Feral Tribune" from the Ministry of Culture and Education in which it is tipulated that " the presumptions on the basis of which the mentioned journal can be exempted from sales tax have ceased to exist." The "opinion" is grounded on the asessment that in the last six months the newspaper concerned has changed so dramatically that it should be in the same basket with pornographic magazines and pulp novels.

It is of no importance who first thought of the "brilliant" idea of mixing "business with pleasure" and making, with one move and through "legal means", as Vladimir Seks promised long ago, the survival of one of the infamous " polluters", the Split "Feral Tribune" in Croatian media space considerably more difficult. The responsibility for this elegant solution, for the "opinion" and its consequences is borne by the signatory, Mrs. Vesna Girardi-Jurkic, one of the greatest collectors of various restrictive provisions, orders and instructions, at least among ministers of culture.

AIM, ZAGREB, July 21, 1994

Why were the, in appearance incompatible media phenomena, the "Feral Tribune" and the "Hrvatski vjesnik" from Vinkovci politically forced into an indecent embrace by way of almost identical decrees issued by the Ministry of Education and Culture on the paying of a porno-sales tax.

"The future looks black. For all of us in the press. Someone turns off the lamp light (feral) and the fight begins in the saloon..." This how the regular columnist and prominent film director, Zvonimir Berkovic describes the current Croatian media scene in "Globus" of 22 July. In Tanja Torbarina's column in the same paper and issue, something quite unusual for that weekly as well as the majority of other Croatian media, the case of the "Feral" is commented with professional solidarity and the consequences of such an act for the freedom of the press pointed out.

Evidently, the uncertainty resulting from the announced changes of the Law on Information, fear caused by a series of still pending court proceedings against the publishers with astronomic sums involved were additionally highlighted by the newest restrictive epistole to "Feral Tribune" from the Ministry of Culture and Education and signed on this occasion as well by the obedient hand of the hyper-active Vesna Girardi-Jurkic, which provoked (the usual) tumultous protests and request for the minister's recall.

The point of the matter is the opinion which revokes the decision of the same Ministry of 23 September 1993 according to which the newspaper "Feral Tribune" is exempted from paying the sales tax, since from the time "of the registration of the paper in the Register of the Ministry of Culture and Educatiron, namely, from the date of the publication of the Opinion on the basis of which the journal "Feral Tribune" is exempted from the sales tax, its concept and content have changed substantially,so that the presumptions on the basis of which the paper in question can continue to be exempted from the sales tax have ceased to exist." the "Opinon" is based on the assessment that in the last dix months the paper has changed so dramatically that it deserves to be in the same basket with pornographic and trash editions.

Considering that "Feral's alleged metamorphosis has remained completely unobserved in the readers' view, the minister's explanation was received by the public with a mixture of bewilderment,doubt,rejection and shock, inspiring the editorial board to devote almost entirely the 18 July issue to disputing,ironizing and making fun of such a transparently formulated text. In addition to its own authors "Feral Tribune" offered its space to organizations and individuals who responded to yet another manifestation of political power in the Croatia media space.

It is hard to believe that any other newspaper in Croatia would suceed at this point of alarming "for its cause" the International Federation of Journalists, the Reporters sans frontieres, the Croatian Helsinki Committee as well as nearly forty prominent individuals who are the creators of the political, cultural and media environment, from the President of the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences to the umber one man of the Croatia Journalists'Association.

In the big publicity given to the whole affair, the almost complete silence with which another very similar "opinion" of the same Ministry addressed to the publisher of the "Hrvatski vjesnik" from Vinkovci was received became even more expressed. Indeed a number of individuals who took part in "Feral's" poll had an exceptionally negative view of the "coincidence" that the tax decree was addressed to two antipodes of Crotian journalism within a few days,namely, simultaneously.

This strange need expressed in symmetrical "opinions" of the Ministry of Culture and Education, inspired Slavko Goldstein the editor-in-chief of the journal "Erasmus" to characterize this act as the "shameful equalization of facism with the pert spirit of freedom-loving democracy, equalizing journalist trash with the most original journalist values that have appeared since the existence of this Republic of Croatia", and Drazen Budisa, the President of the HSLS to note that "the difference between the "Hrvatski vjesnik" and "Feral Tribune" is precisely as great as the difference between stupidity and wittiness." Budisa comments the attempt of the authorities to nullify that difference administratively in the following way:

"After the letter of protest of the Jewish Communes in Croatia due to the articles published in the Vinkovci "Hrvatski vjesnik", the authorities should have done something with that paper. They decided to suspend the tax concession. However, in order to pacify the increasingly right right wing, they struck at the 'Feral Tribune" with the same measure. This could be the beginning of a tax unification of Croatian newspapers which are too similar as it is."

In an attempt to take a closer look behind the first layers of the texts of the two "opinions" of the Ministry of Culture and Education which call to mind the awkward paraphrase of the "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Syndrome", the unusual connection established owing to the chaotic concurrence of Croatian political and media circumstances by two such different papers as "Feral Tribune" and "Hrvatski vjesnik" cannot be avoided. Precisely the "Feral" which devoted in its issue of 16 June the article "Media in the Shadow of the Willow" to the newspaper from Vinkovci, did a marvelous job at promoting ( or exposing) the "Hrvatski vjesnik", an article from which many readers found out for the first time what was actually published on the pages of the provincial large run marginal paper and who was, by generously filling out the advertising space, sponsoring the paper that is by its contents disgracing Croatia.

After the other papers also published parts of or the entire text written by Viktor Ivancic, it became impossible to ignore the fact that a paper was regularly published and sold in Croatia which was so openly, without any consequences and with the support of about twenty enterprises, violating Article 39 of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia which prohibits "any incitement and instigation of war or use of violence, national, racial or religious hatred or any other form of intolerence."

Nothing was changed by the fact that "Hrvatski vjesnik" itself in its issue of 3 July carried the articles from the "Feral" (and "Feral" then returned the "curtesy" by a whole page), at first trying and then giving up the attempt to answer back, since the editor-in-chief ( and it seems the sole author) Zvonimir Sekulin could not find adequate words in the Croatian language to do so: "I just don't know the adequate word which I could use to honour Viktor Ivancic. All the ones I know are too gentle, both the adjectives and the verbs."

After the Coordinating Committee of the Jewish Communes of the Republic of Croatia too addressed a protest to the public at the beginning of July due to events which "cause our concern and dissapproval" and requested the Public Prosecutor to institute proceedings against the "Hrvatski vjesnik", eyes could no longer be kept shut in the face of the embarassing titles glaring from newspaper stands. Most probably also in the face of the fact that the editor-in-chief of the Vinkovci paper, Zvonimir Sekulin is the diligent correspondent from the Assembly sessions and the President's press conferences, although he is not even a member of the Croatian Journalists Association.

It is actually of no importance who first thought of the "brilliant "idea of mixing "business with pleasure" and making with one move and through "legal means" as Vladimir Seks promisesd long ago, in addition to the Vinkovci "Vjesnik" the survival of one of the infamous "polluters", the Split "Feral Tribune" almost impossible. The responsibility for this elegant solution, for the "opinion" and its consequences, is borne by the signatory, Mrs. Vesna Girardi-Jurkic, one the greatest collectors of various restrictive provisions, orders and instructions, at least among ministers of culture.

Finally, comparing once againt the last issues of "Hrvatski vjesnik" and "Feral Tribune" with the previous ones, one must note that there are some changes: Tomislav Mercep is no longer the editor-adviser of the newspaper from Vinkovci, although the publisher is still "Europski jastreb", while "Feral Tribune" has as of recent changed its publisher, a fact probably also observed by the lawyers whom the Feral team, following the advise of Ivan Supek, the President of the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences, most probably called upon.

The riddle runs: are these the "conceptual and substantial" changes referred to in the "opinion" of the Ministry of Culture and Education?

MERI STAJDUHAR