JOURNALISTS' PROTECTION COMMITTEE RELEASES REPORT ON CROATIA

WASHINGTON, March 27 (Hina) - The shaky coalition of reformist parties elected in Croatia after the death of nationalist President Franjo Tudjman resumed in 2001 political and economic reforms and bids to join the EU, so the freedom of the media continued improving, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) says in its annual report on Croatia.#L# The report, released in Washington on Tuesday, notes changes to some laws regulating the position of the media, for example amendments to the Law on Informing and the new legal status of the news agency Hina. Parliament, however, failed to change the Law on Telecommunications, the report adds. The authorities occasionally showed willingness to influence the media, with variable results, it says. The report mentions individual cases of pressure on the media or impermissible treatment of journalists, as well as the protests of some 20,000 nationalists, demobilised war veterans and Croatian Democratic Union sympathisers against the replacement of Josip Jovic. The report says photo-journalist Rino Belan and journalist Damir Pilic were physically assaulted, and that Croatian Radio Television journalist Denis Latin and director Mirko Galic were exposed to pressure and demands for replacement. The CPJ report notes that several hundred slander lawsuits against journalists and the media are still active, but adds there are virtually no new ones, except the one Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic filed against Nacional weekly. The report notes that last November the Interior Ministry made around 120 Service for the Protection of the Constitutional Order (SZUP) files available to journalists. It adds that the Croatian Journalists' Association and Feral Tribune weekly had asked that former SZUP officials answer for their actions but that the government did not give in to this pressure. (hina) ha