ZAGREB, Jan 17 (Hina) - Some political parties in Croatia Friday reacted to an article in the Nacional weekly on a statement made by Croatian skier Ivica Kostelic and his yesterday's statement that the weekly had made malevolent and
coarse accusations against him and his family and brought them in connection with Nazism.
ZAGREB, Jan 17 (Hina) - Some political parties in Croatia Friday
reacted to an article in the Nacional weekly on a statement made by
Croatian skier Ivica Kostelic and his yesterday's statement that
the weekly had made malevolent and coarse accusations against him
and his family and brought them in connection with Nazism. #L#
Although Ivica Kostelic dismissed the article in Nacional and
apologised to everybody whom he might have insulted with his
statement, there is a media lynch against the Kostelic family, the
president of the Croatian Social Liberal Party, Drazen Budisa told
reporters.
He said that the involvement of Croatian athletes in politics so far
had not been successful, nor was Ivica's statement, which, he
added, could not be defended.
However, Kostelic did apologise and expressed profound regret, so
the party believes that this family of top-quality athletes should
not be subjected to heavy persecution which resembles media lynch
from the past, Budisa said.
In reply to a reporter's question, Budisa said he was convinced that
the persecution of the Kostelics after Ante Kostelic, Ivica's
father, recently criticised the Croatian President was no
coincidence.
The Croatian Bloc - Movement for a Modern Croatia said in a press
release that Nacional had issued a monstrous indictment against the
Kostelic family by calling them Nazi sympathisers.
Such a brutal score-settling with the most successful Croatian
sports family deserves condemnation from the entire patriotic
public, the party said in the press release. It added that reasons
for such attacks were politically motivated, because the Kostelics
had become a liability for Croatia due to their successes and merits
for Croatia's promotion, because they did not hide their criticism
against certain state officials.
The Croatian Bloc calls on all Croatia-oriented political parties,
associations and individuals, to publicly back the Kostelics and
defend them from a possible lynch, the press release says.
Members of the "Brodosplit" association of Homeland War veterans
also expressed support to the Kostelics.
Zagreb's organisation of the Liberal Party Youth said it respected
and recognised Ivica Kostelic's sports achievements, and urged him
to more responsibly take his role as a public person and a role model
for the Croatian youth.
Citing Nazi ideology and exalting it, notwithstanding the
intentions and context, is unacceptable because Croatia has too
heavy a heritage burden for such statements to be taken lightly, say
the liberal youth.
Nacional wrote that after a slalom victory in Kranjska Gora last
year, Ivica Kostelic had said that "the secret to his victory lay in
the fact that at the start he was as prepared as a German soldier on
June 22, 1941".
In a statement yesterday, Kostelic dismissed Nacional's
fabrications that he was a sympathiser of Nazism. He said that his
statement had unfortunately been taken out of context and
misinterpreted.
"If I have hurt anyone, I apologise most sincerely because it
certainly was not my intention," Kostelic said.
He stressed in his statement that he and his family despised Nazism
and considered it one of the world's worst evils.
(hina) lml sb