HND SAYS POLICE QUESTIONING OF JOURNALIST SCANDALOUS

ZAGREB, March 28 (Hina) - The Croatian Journalists' Society (HND) on Thursday issued a statement in protest against the taking of a female journalist of the Zagreb-based "Nacional" weekly to a police station for questioning. The statement, signed by HND president Jagoda Vukusic, described the incident as scandalous. The HND quoted Interior Minister Ivan Jarnjak as saying during question time in Parliament that the police had been informed that the journalist was going to publish "certain documents of the Interior Ministry which are classified as secret." With his answer Jarnjak "helped us to realize what kind of police practice the law makers had in mind when they tabled an amendment to the Criminal Act, under which a journalist shares responsibility for the publishing of a state secret," the statement said, adding that the term state secret was not legally defined and regulated. "If the information is accurate and true then the journalists are obliged to present it to the public," it added. The HND rejected as unacceptable Jarnjak's statement that a report on wiretapping in the March 20 edition of "Nacional" had been published with the intention of alarming the public. (hina) lm jn 281932 MET mar 96