The petition, which was signed by 250 citizens in two hours immediately after the campaign was launched, urges the Croatian government not to allow the transfer of Jovic to The Hague after the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which accused Jovic of contempt of court, yesterday issued a warrant for his arrest as he failed to appear before the tribunal to enter a plea.
"We believe that Josip Jovic did his job in a highly professional manner and that by publishing transcripts of testimonies of a protected witness, he did what every good journalist would. Those who were protecting the protected witness should have been more careful in seeing that the transcript should not reach the press. In urging the government to protect Josip Jovic, we refer to the Constitutional Law on cooperation with the tribunal, which stipulates that an arrest warrant will be turned down if the charges refer to acts which are not within the jurisdiction of the Hague Tribunal, which is the case with Josip Jovic," the petition reads.
The signing of the petition has been organised by branches of the Croatian Journalists' Society in Split, with the support of the HND presidency and HND chief Dragutin Lucic.
On 9 September this year, the ICTY issued an indictment against Jovic charging him with publishing in the Slobodna Dalmacija daily the identity and testimony of a protected witness at the trial of Bosnian Croat commander Tihomir Blaskic in March 1998. Jovic published the testimony in the daily in November and December 2000, revealing the identity of the protected witness.