PRESS FREEDOM AWARD RECIPIENTS HOLD NEWS CONFERENCE

WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (Hina) - The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) organised a news conference in the National Press Club in Washington on Wednesday for six journalists who had been granted this year's Press Freedom Awards, including editor-in-chief of the Split-based weekly "Feral Tribune". Speaking of the media situation in Croatia, Ivancic cited the provision of the Croatian Penal Code envisaging criminal prosecution for libelling and insulting state officials, as the greatest problem faced by journalists. "One of the biggest problems of the media in Croatia is the existence of a law protecting government officials from critical reports," Ivancic said. "There are five untouchables in Croatia," Ivancic said, adding that the situation in the Croatian media today was "worse than in the last years of communism." Croatian authorities have complete control of television, radio and the daily press, with the exception of the Rijeka-based newspaper "Novi List", he said. The award recipients from Russia, Taiwan, the United States and the Ivory Coast stressed restrictive laws on the media as a major problem. All of them were asked whether the CPJ award would have any effect on the public in their countries. Ivancic replied that it was obvious that the effect had already been produced because on the day of his departure for the United States the state-run news agency Hina released a commentary describing his awarding as "the awarding of a traitor," although such an assessment cannot be found anywhere in Hina's analysis of the facts regarding the granting of the CPJ award to Feral Tribune. The Feral editor confirmed a statement by CPJ Executive Director William Orma that a court hearing of Ivancic and Feral journalist Marinko Culic had been postponed over Ivancic's visit to the US. The editor of the Ivorian daily "La Voie", Freedom Neruda, described the CPJ award as a sort of identification of governments opposing freedom of the media. A US correspondent from Taiwan, Ying Chan, and his colleague Shieh Chung-Liang, the Taipei correspondent of a Hong Kong weekly, said that Chinese-language newspapers enjoying freedom of reporting were rare in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The CPJ's International Press Freedom Awards will be presented at a ceremony in New York on Thursday. (hina) vm jn 221328 MET oct 97