EXPERT REPORT ON CROATIA MEDIA BILL PUBLISHED, OSCE DISTANCES ITSELF FROM JUTARNJI LIST REPORTS

ZAGREB, April 21 (Hina) - The European Commission, the Council of Europe and the OSCE Mission to Croatia on Wednesday published an expert report on Croatia's media bill and provisions of the Penal Code referring to defamation, the OSCE said in a statement.#L# The report, which is available on the OSCE's web site, was drafted by media experts commissioned by the three international organisations at the request of the Croatian government. The report provides advice on bringing the government drafts in line with European standards, particularly with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the relevant case law of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, reads the statement. The report also recommends removing provisions on defamation from the Criminal Code. Defamation, insult and breach of privacy should be regulated through other means, in particular through the use of civil procedures, reads the report. In its statement the OSCE clearly distances itself from reports in Jutarnji List daily which bring the report and the international organisations which commissioned it in connection with the privatisation of Slobodna Dalmacija daily by the Croatian government. The head of the OSCE Mission to Croatia, Ambassador Peter Semneby, and the head of the EC Delegation to Croatia, Ambassador Jacques Wunenburger, today sent a letter to Jutarnji List's editor regarding those reports. "While the expert report of the three organizations is clear in recommending that anti-concentration provisions be introduced in the draft Law on Media, it does not prescribe which threshold should be put as the upper limit which a single media company should be allowed to control but merely suggests that the relevant article from the previous version of the law could be preserved," the two ambassadors said in the letter. "Most importantly, the report does not say anything about who in Croatia can buy what in the field of media. The privatization of a state-owned asset is the responsibility of the Croatian Government," reads the letter. Concluding the letter, Semneby and Wunenburger said that allegations that the international organizations' expert report on the Law on Media was sent on the eve of the deadline for the decision on the tender for Slobodna Dalmacija were simply wrong as "the timing and the content of the international community expert advice has nothing to do with the privatization of Slobodna Dalmacija but it is part of a legislative timetable agreed with the Government". (Hina) rml