SARAJEVO POLICE CONFISCATES COPIES OF INDEPENDENT SATIRICAL PAPER

SARAJEVO, June 7 (Hina) - Sarajevo Canton Police on Thursday confiscated from news-stands all copies of "Polikita", an independent satirical biweekly printed in Tuzla and very similar to Croatia's "Feral Tribune". No official explanation has been given for the action, even though a spokesman for the Federal Interior Ministry, Suad Arnautovic, said that the police were "only carrying out what the public prosecutor ordered." Sarajevo media who looked for an explanation received no reply from the offices of the federal and cantonal public prosecutor. All that has surfaced to date was the fact that copies of "Polikita" were confiscated only in Sarajevo. On the occasion of what happened, the Independent Union of Professional Journalists of Bosnia-Herzegovina on Friday forwarded "the strongest protest" to the Federal and Cantonal Interior Ministries. "By illegally preventing the distribution of papers, regardless by whose order, the practice of the most rigorous censorship, characteristic of undemocratic and totalitarian systems, is being revived. The Independent Union of Professional Journalists of BH assesses the police action of confiscating 'Polikita' as the rudest attack on the freedom of the media and free journalism in BH", the protest said. The police action against "Polikita", which does not spare Bosnian politicians, is the first action by state authorities against an independent BH paper since 1992. Alija Izetbegovic, the current chairman of the BH Presidency, has often insisted that his authorities did not resort to censorship, or limited the freedom of the media, not even in the most difficult times during the war. (hina) ha rm 071608 MET jun 97