ZAGREB, June 16 (Hina) - The Mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Institute for the Media (EIM) from Duesseldorf have agreed on a project of monitoring the media situation in
Croatia, to be most intensive during pre-election campaigning. The implementation of the project will start soon, as soon as the project's international coordinator arrives in Zagreb, OSCE Mission head Peter Palmer told reporters in Zagreb on Wednesday. According to Palmer, results of the monitoring campaign would be an extremely important part of the final assessment of whether the election was free and fair. This assessment would be given by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights from Warsaw. The OSCE official recalled last year's conclusions adopted by a Council of Europe expert group regarding the need for political independence of Croatian Radio-T
ZAGREB, June 16 (Hina) - The Mission of the Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the European
Institute for the Media (EIM) from Duesseldorf have agreed on a
project of monitoring the media situation in Croatia, to be most
intensive during pre-election campaigning.
The implementation of the project will start soon, as soon as the
project's international coordinator arrives in Zagreb, OSCE
Mission head Peter Palmer told reporters in Zagreb on Wednesday.
According to Palmer, results of the monitoring campaign would be an
extremely important part of the final assessment of whether the
election was free and fair. This assessment would be given by the
OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights from
Warsaw.
The OSCE official recalled last year's conclusions adopted by a
Council of Europe expert group regarding the need for political
independence of Croatian Radio-Television (HRT). He expressed hope
that the Council of Europe suggestions would serve as a basis for
possible changes to the Law on HRT.
Last week, a group of experts of the Council of Europe visited
Croatia in order to discuss the new law on telecommunications,
especially those segments concerning programme broadcasting.
Possibly the most important conclusion they adopted was that the
electronic media should have a separate, single, independent
supervisory body, instead of the current two - the Council for
Telecommunications and the Council for Radio and Television.
Palmer dismissed claims in the press about OSCE's lack of interest
in the problem of missing persons. He said the problem was not one of
OSCE's basic responsibilities but was rather within the
jurisdiction of competent government bodies.
Speaking about the situation in the Croatian Danube River region,
Palmer said the number of ethnically-motivated incidents had
increased in May, but was currently decreasing. There were several
incidents and cases of setting fire to housing facilities, Palmer
said, adding this was probably caused by the fact that summer was
approaching and that more people were returning to their homes.
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