[Thread] Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic received Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Award yesterday. In her acceptance speech she talked about being “born on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain”, dreaming of places “where people were able to speak freely” 
Tito split with Stalin in 1948, Yugoslavia was one of the founding countries of the Non-Aligned Movement, and the Croatian president went on an exchange program to the US when she was enrolled in high school in Yugoslavia, but let’s not dwell on that.
I just wanted to remind you what free speech looks like today in the free Croatia
This summer the police arrested a man who compared the Croatian prime minister Andrej Plenković to the former PM Sanader (jailed for corruption):
tris.com.hr/2019/07/korcul…
tris.com.hr/2019/07/korcul…
This September the police arrested and fined Croatian journalist Goran Duhacek (@Prajdizan) for an ‘anti-police’ message on Twitter and for “offending citizens moral feelings by posting a satirical rewrite of a patriotic song”
balkaninsight.com/2019/09/17/cro…
balkaninsight.com/2019/09/17/cro…
Oh, and also, don’t think of criticizing the ruling party (HDZ, president’s former party), as the police seem to be triggered if they catch you wearing a T-shirt saying “HDZ = Thiefs” m.24sata.hr/amp/news/polic…
I am going off tangent here, but while we're at T-shirt policing, I thought I'd mention that a young man recently got arrested and fined for wearing a T-shirt with a marijuana leaf print (considered to be a promotion of drugs here)!
net.hr/danas/crna-kro…
net.hr/danas/crna-kro…
PM Plenkovic has championed the art of deflecting journalistic questions. Recently, he also accused the Croatian NGO Gong of campaigning against the Croatian Commissioner, Dubravka Suica, for daring to question where her millions came from euobserver.com/tickers/146098
In their 2019 World Press Freedom report, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked Croatia 64th (out of 180 countries). RSF warned that journalists who "investigate corruption, organised crime or war crimes are often subjected to harassment campaigns." rsf.org/en/croatia
RSF also warned about the political influence at the state broadcaster HRT. In December 2018, HRT announced they'd sue 2 of their own journalists + Croatian Journalists’ Association (@HNDhr) "due to damage to its reputation and good name." Crazy, right? Wait, there's more...
@HNDhr At the beginning of the year, Croatian Association of Journalists HRT found there were 35 ongoing lawsuits against journalists and various media (for damage to its reputation and good name) web.archive.org/web/*/https://…
@HNDhr @zo_wack Judge said that “the statements they have made are highly inappropriate and utterly unprofessional." Let me stress out once again - it was a satirical article. I wrote about it here: kosovotwopointzero.com/en/life-in-a-d… @kosovo2point0
@HNDhr @zo_wack @kosovo2point0 The point is that the Croatian defamation laws make it easy to sue journalists for libel/defamation, which often results in self-censorship.
@HNDhr @zo_wack @kosovo2point0 This March, after hundreds of journalists rallied in Zagreb to protest the wave of lawsuits filed against journalist and media, Croatian PM Plenković said "he didn’t see a problem with media freedom in his country." balkaninsight.com/2019/03/05/efj…
@HNDhr @zo_wack @kosovo2point0 A couple of days later, the police paid a visit to @Nethr media, to verify the identity and home address of journalist Đurđica Klancir. The ID verification was related to a private defamation lawsuit filed against her by a local politician she wrote about shorturl.at/fkuF3
@HNDhr @zo_wack @kosovo2point0 @Nethr In December 2018, Andrea Topić, journalist of Slobodna Dalmacija daily, found her car tyres punctured - after being threatened on multiple occasions because of her reporting on illegal construction slobodnadalmacija.hr/novosti/hrvats…
@HNDhr @zo_wack @kosovo2point0 @Nethr It'd be an understatement to say that neither the president nor the government made it their priority to condemn these or similar attacks on journalists
@HNDhr @zo_wack @kosovo2point0 @Nethr This May, when journalist @DanijelMajic got assaulted by the TV presenter Bujanec (already featured in this thread) and his buddies in Bleiburg, "there was no reaction from any Croatian officials" nor the president said @RSF_inter shorturl.at/imxLY
@HNDhr @zo_wack @kosovo2point0 @Nethr @DanijelMajic @RSF_inter Croatia's treatment of refugees deserves a separate thread, but this summer, in an interview to Swiss TV SRF admitted that the border police are engaged in pushbacks of refugees to Bosnia srf.ch/play/tv/tagess…
@HNDhr @zo_wack @kosovo2point0 @Nethr @DanijelMajic @RSF_inter She backtracked soon enough, and urged Croatian journalists “not to follow foreign media working for I don’t know whose interests” and to instead “present the Croatian version of events.”
@HNDhr @zo_wack @kosovo2point0 @Nethr @DanijelMajic @RSF_inter To me, this sounds to me like a straight-out-of-an-authoritarian-dictionary discourse, but who am I to tell?! I have never experienced life on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain!
@HNDhr @zo_wack @kosovo2point0 @Nethr @DanijelMajic @RSF_inter I could go on forever, but this woman's gotta have lunch at some point!
But this is an open-source thread, so please just continue with all the examples you can think of (and I forgot to mention)!
But this is an open-source thread, so please just continue with all the examples you can think of (and I forgot to mention)!
