ZAGREB, Feb 25 (Hina) - Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor on Wednesday dismissed media allegations that she had demanded that members of the Croatian Radio and Television (HRT) Programmes Council resign because she wanted to
appoint her person as director of the national broadcasting corporation.
ZAGREB, Feb 25 (Hina) - Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor on
Wednesday dismissed media allegations that she had demanded that
members of the Croatian Radio and Television (HRT) Programmes Council
resign because she wanted to appoint her person as director of the
national broadcasting corporation.#L#
"That's a blatant lie. That's not true," Kosor said at Question Time
in parliament in response to the question by Marin Jurjevic of the
Social Democratic Party, who wanted to know if she had really dared
exert political pressure on the Council.
Kosor stressed she had never exerted any pressure on anyone on the
Programmes Council.
The present members of the Programmes Council were appointed by
parties which were in opposition at the time, including Kosor's
Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).
Culture Minister Bozo Biskupic said there was no conflict of interest
in appointing journalist Ivan Zvonimir Cicak and lawyer Vesna Alaburic
to a commission in charge of drafting amendments to the Law on the
HRT.
Biskupic was responding to the question by HDZ deputy Jagoda
Martincevic, who wanted to know which criteria were applied in
appointing Cicak and Alaburic in view of their collaboration with the
newspaper publisher Europapress Holding.
Biskupic said that Cicak had been appointed because his objections to
the existing law reflected those of the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and because he was involved with the
media, while Alaburic was an internationally recognised expert on the
media.
(Hina) vm sb