The diversity of the media in terms of ownership and editorial policy, of which Feral Tribune is an unavoidable part, is one of the highest tenets of contemporary democracy and civic life, read the statement signed by HND president Dragutin Lucic and released in the wake of news that the weekly did not hit newsstands this week and that its survival was questionable due to VAT debts and court damages.
The HND called even on those who disagreed with Feral Tribune's editorial policy to stand up for the weekly's survival in the name of this right to disagree.
The HND recalled the Split-based weekly's activity and past, as the HND's Split branch did yesterday. Feral Tribune's journalists and editors were among the first to stand up against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's imperial policy, reporting from every Croatian battlefield in the early 1990s, said the statement.
They were among the first to uncover the dark sides of Croatia's recent history and broached numerous taboo subjects. In times unfavourable for media independence and freedom, Feral Tribune was among those who invoked not only media, but also human, civic and notably ethnic freedoms and rights, the statement said.
The weekly was also fully supported by the Croatian Helsinki Committee on Human Rights (HHO). Its president Danijel Ivin said today he was flabbergasted by the government's freeze of the weekly's account over the VAT debt and announced that unless the government changed its relationship towards the media, the HHO would take unprecedented actions and internationalise the entire case.
Geza Stancic of the HHO Media Council applauded the government's announcement to reduce VAT tax on newspapers. He told the press this move was not bad although the tax could be even lower. He said the Feral Tribune situation could look like a company's business crisis, but that it was an alarm bell from the political and media situation perspective.
Stancic said Feral Tribune's folding would reduce pluralism in Croatian journalism as well as ownership. All this shows that conditions for journalistic pluralism in Croatia are not sufficient and the government should provide them, he said, calling on the government to urgently help the weekly overcome the crisis.