MEDIA AND THE STATE

FERAL TRIBUNE in Court

AIM Zagreb, June 15, 1996

Viktor Ivancic (born in Sarajevo in 1960) and Marinko Culic (born in Sibenik in 1951), Editor-in-Chief and commentator of the Split satirical weekly Feral Tribune, are the first Croatian journalists on whose hide an innovation introduced as part of the recent "mini-reform of penal code" will be tested. On Friday, June 14, the first court hearing was held in a crowded courtroom of the Municipal Court in Zagreb. These two journalists were taken to court because of texts published in the volume of Feral Tribune dated April 29, in which they "slandered and insulted" the President of the Republic, one of the five persons in Croatia whose reputation is in the line of duty protected by state prosecutor. In other words, if an article appears in the media which the State Prosecutor's Office establishes to be an attack on the honour and reputation of the president of Croatia, chairman of the Assembly, prime minister, president of the Constitutional or the Supreme court, it is no longer necessary for any of these personalities to make personal efforts and demand that proceedings be instigated. State prosecutor is authorized to instigate criminal proceedings for slander and insult after acquiring only a written agreement from the person out of the five super-protected Croatian citizens whose dignity has been jeopardized.

As soon as the public learnt about the mentioned innovation towards the end of February, it was received with great disapproval, because doubt existed - it seems rightfully

• that the authorities already had in view their "favourites" ready to be "disciplined" by it. Majority of the arguments were spent in an attempt to prove that this was a case of dangerous narrowing of freedom of the media, of stimulating self-censorship as the most perfidious form of censorship (which officially does not exist in Croatia), and the fact that for slander and insult, if undoubtedly proved in court, journalists could earn as much as three years of imprisonment (!)

The mini-reform of penal code was adopted by the Assembly at the end of March, and soon afterwards, the Croatian Journalists' Society reacted by engaging a respectable lawyer Ms. Vesna Alaburic to write a proposal to the Constitutional Court for evaluation of constitutionality of the provisions of the Criminal Law pursuant to which state prosecutor protects five top state officials in the line of duty. It is indicative that this item was on tha agenda of the session of the Constitutional Court on Wednesday, June 12, just two days before the first hearing of the trial to Feral's journalists. It is also indicative that on that Wednesday the Constitutional Court did not reach the final decision on the controversial provisions, having assessed that it would be helpful for it to consult the Government and the Assembly in order to clarify motives which had brought about amendment of the Criminal Law, and to have a comparative analysis of legislature and practice of European countries and conventions of the Council of Europe. After close examination of European standards applied in protection of high state officials, it would be easier for the Croatian Constitutional judges to assess the status of domestic ones.

Had it been reached, the decision of the Constitutional Court would have certainly been of great use to judge Marin Mrcela two days later when he was forced to face the hot Feral's potato. However, he could not state any additional "consultations and analysis" as the reason for postponement of the hearing. Therefore, on Friday, June 14, at 8.30 hours, the trial to Feral's journalists began. They were charged for texts in which Dr Franjo Tudjman was sharply criticized primarily for his singular idea of "reconciliation" which was to be effectuated by reconstruction of what used to be a concentration camp in Jasenovac into a joint monument to all victims of the Second World War which would "warn the Croatian people that it was divided in history and brought to a state of mutual conflict", as he explained in a comprehensive interview to journalists of state controlled media.

Apart from the fact that Civic Initiative for Freedom of Public Word founded a special committee for Feral Tribune headed by Suzan Sontag, apart from the fact that the protest of the Croatian Journalists' Society and the Trade Union of Journalists of Croatia were joined by all international journalists' organizations - IFJ and FIEJ, Reporteurs sans Frontieres, Article 19 and Committee to Protect Journalists - eight respectable lawyers decided to defend Viktor Ivancic and Marinko Culic without charge. That is how, on a bench opposite the municipal state prosecutor Visnja Loncar, a real pleiad of lawyers of the defence from Split and Zagreb gathered: Vesna Alaburic, Dafinka Vecerina, Anto Nobilo, Branko Seric, Emil Havkic, Slobodan Budak, Mirko Franceshi and Cedo Prodanovic. By listening to the two defendents, however, one got the impression that they did not need any legal assistance: they defended the incriminated sentences with such concentration and so suggestively.

As Editor-in-Chief, Viktor Ivancic was charged for the unsigned text on the front page of Feral's serious part of the journal called Glede & Unatoc (As Regards & Notwithstanding) which is an introduction to a whole "subject of Jasenovac", and photomontage accompanying the satirical contribution titled "Jasenovac - the Largest Croatian Underground City" in which "Dr Franjo Tudjman (is) Receiving the Dearest Cup from the Hands of Dr Ante Pavelic", as it is stated under the "photograph", and the "cup" is a miniature of the well known flower from Jasenovac, monument made by Bogdan Bogdanovic. The controversial introductory texts in extendo reads as follows: "The communist general Franjo stripped of rank returned to power in 1990 as a declared supporter of generalissimus Franco who instead of 'Good day' or 'Praise the Lord' used to salute his followers with 'Viva la muerte' and who, by the way, had everybody who did not agree with his regime either killed, tortured or banished, just to be able to mix remains of dead phalangists with those of republicans, and in this way maintain peace in his country. This thanatomaniac fixed idea of Franco's was adopted by our general Franjo who has just announced that he would carry out his long made threats about construction of Croatian Santa Guadarrama in Jasenovac and who is on the point of starting to dig an enormous common pit under whole of Croatia. Our Francoist intends to generously offer the country, abandoned by the living, to the dead, showing in the so far most brutal manner what type of Croats he in fact wants. It is resounding from Pantovcak: 'Viva la Muerte!'"

Marinko Culic is charged for the text "Remains in the Grinder" (reprinted in the latest issue of the Feral dated June 10, but this time signed by forty odd "co-authors", all of them from the very top echelons of Croatian public life), especially for the paragraph which reads: "If there is a wish to borrow something from Spain it should only be de-Francoisation of the country, and not creation of a totalitarian fascistic-communist country headed by half-breed Tudjman who is with a part of his body and limbs formed of Tito, and with the other half of Pavelic (in the ratio which corresponds to the current political circumstances)".

Both journalists of Feral declared that they had "grammatically and orthographically" understood the charges, while they had not been able to grasp the "sense". Journalists gathered in the courtroom (approximately fifty of them, both domestic and foreign), in the form of defence, were able to hear a specific lecture on how a good text should be written. Ivancic, for instance, denied the very possibility of President Tudjman being even insulted, least of all slandered, by citing a few of the President's interviews given to Croatian and foreign media in which he expressly referred to Franco. After that, Ivancic made a point by saying that Croatia had quite an elaborate legislature by means of which it protects its officials from all kinds of journalistic imputations, but that the Croatian people could use a law which would protect it (the Croatian people) from insults hurled at it around the world by the President of the state himself!

After four hours, having heard the defendants, judge Mrcela scheduled next hearing for the end of September, since he assessed that it was necessary to hear a few members of the editorial board in order to establish who were the authors of the unsigned text and photomontage. The eight lawyers of the defence responded by their proposals, convincing the Court that it was necessary to summon witnesses: apart from President Tudjman personally in order to establish with certainty to what extent he had been insulted and slandered, foreign minister Dr Mate Granic, minister of defence Gojko Susak, Assembly deputy Bozo Kovacevic, founder of the Society "Josip Broz Tito" Tomislav Badovinac, as well as a few experts who would competently assess communicational and linguistic messages of the apostrophized text. The court will declare its opinion about these intriguing proposals of the defence at a later date.

If it had not been for so much anxiety in the air, the impression after the first hearing could have most precisely been compared with a glorious satirical performance. After all, right now in Zagreb, there is a theatre festival going on, abundantly financially supported by the state, called the "Days of Satire".

MERI STAJDUHAR