DID CROATIAN TELEVISION CENSOR INTERVIEW WITH LE PEN?

ZAGREB, May 5 (Hina) - The editor of the information and politics programme on Croatian Television (HTV), Nikola Kristic, on Sunday dismissed accusations made by reporter Silvija Luks that the editors had heavily censored her interview with French presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen, because of which she stopped the broadcasting of the contentious interview last evening.#L# Silvija Luks contacted Hina on late Saturday evening from Paris and said in a statement that she personally stopped the broadcasting of the announced interview with Le Pen because of, as she said, harsh censorship after which the 27-minute long exclusive interview was cut down to 15 minutes. The interview should have been aired on Saturday evening. She said Kristic and editor of daily shows Zeljka Markic had censored the interview. Also heavily censored, the author said the statement, is a part of the interview in which Le Pen remembered his visit to Croatia in 1991 and talks with current President Stjepan Mesic. In an interview to Hina on Sunday, editor Kristic dismissed Luks' accusations about "censorship on Croatian Television and chaos on the public television since the appointment of new editors." "Her interview was chaos. The only and primary reason for cutting the interview was to turn an uninteresting and boring 27-minute interview into a 15-minute long interesting interview," Kristic said. He said that the part which referred to President Mesic was cut due to same reasons. According to reporter Luks, "the French presidential candidate and controversial populist, Le Pen, gave exclusive interviews only to Israeli, Canadian, Spanish and Croatian television." (hina) it sb