(CPJ/IFEX) – CPJ is deeply concerned about the criminal prosecution of Orlanda Obad, a Croatian journalist with the independent political daily “Jutarnji List”, who was charged with violating Article 295 of the Croatian Penal Code for revealing alleged business secrets about President Franjo Tudjman’s family’s financial holdings. **Updates IFEX alert of 7 May 1999** The […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – CPJ is deeply concerned about the criminal prosecution of
Orlanda Obad, a Croatian journalist with the independent political daily
“Jutarnji List”, who was charged with violating Article 295 of the Croatian
Penal Code for revealing alleged business secrets about President Franjo
Tudjman’s family’s financial holdings.
**Updates IFEX alert of 7 May 1999**
The Croatian Public Prosecutor’s office filed charges against Obad on 22
April 1999. The accusations were based on an article Obad published on 17
October 1998 in “Jutarnji List”, in which she reported that the president’s
wife had approximately US$150,000 in a bank account at the Zagrebacka bank
in Croatia. This information was excluded from an earlier earnings
declaration, despite a new Croatian law (the Law on Rights and Obligations
of State Employees passed in September 1998 by the Croatian parliament) that
requires public officials to release the amount of their entire family
holdings.
Although the revelations in Obad’s article may have caused embarrassment to
the president’s family, information about the financial holdings of
government officials and
their families falls well within the category of public interest. CPJ
believes that no journalist should be prosecuted for publishing such
information.
This is the second attempt by President Tudjman’s government to charge
journalists under Article 295. A final court hearing is expected to take
place in the fall for Ratko Boskovic, a journalist with the independent
weekly “Globus”. He has been accused of revealing the content of bank
documents in a 1995 “Globus” article which examined possible financial
improprieties of the Viktor Lenac shipyard in Rijeka. His trial is still
pending.
CPJ is also very troubled by the precedent that this case sets in regard to
the treatment of sources. Two employees from Zagrebacka bank in Croatia, who
admitted freely to the bank that they had provided the information to Obad,
were immediately fired, an act which has been severely criticized by the
public and the press in Croatia. On 3 December 1998, Obad and the former
bank employees were called to testify before an investigative judge
regarding the case. They have since filed a complaint against the charges,
but are expected to be tried in the fall. If convicted, they could all face
up to five years in prison.
Recommended Action
Send appeals to the president:
practicing their profession
for
Human Rights, to which Croatia is a signatory, grants journalists the
freedom “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media
and regardless of frontiers”
cease the unjustified harassment of Obad and other individuals accused under
Article 295
Appeals To
His Excellency Franjo Tudjman
President of Croatia
Zagreb, Croatia
Fax: +385 1 456 5208
E-mail: www-admin@president.hr
Please copy appeals to the source if possible.
