ZAGREB, June 4 (Hina) - The media council of the Croatian Helsinki Committee on Human Rights (HHO) believes the tender for a concession for Croatian Television's third channel should be repeated because of the inadequacy of the
current law on telecommunications and instead carried out under the electronic media bill currently in parliamentary procedure.
ZAGREB, June 4 (Hina) - The media council of the Croatian Helsinki
Committee on Human Rights (HHO) believes the tender for a
concession for Croatian Television's third channel should be
repeated because of the inadequacy of the current law on
telecommunications and instead carried out under the electronic
media bill currently in parliamentary procedure. #L#
The council warned the government in a statement on Wednesday that
current provisions did not offer sufficient guarantees that the
tender would be carried out in keeping with public interest.
The HHO is of the opinion the current law on telecommunications,
under which the tender was invited, enables the further
concentration of media power because press publishers were not
excluded from the tender.
The HHO says the law contains "lax provisions concerning the
programme", i.e. that it does not stipulate standards on the share
of European production and that of small independent producers.
Provisions on the minimum and share of domestic production are also
"insufficient", says the HHO.
It maintains the current law on telecommunications does not contain
provisions on the protection of journalists, which the HHO says has
proven to be a problem in private media.
The aforementioned contentious issues have been resolved in the
electronic media bill, the HHO media council said.
(hina) ha sb