ZAGREB, February 14, 2018 – The Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND) on Wednesday deplored the visiting Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić’s disrespectful refusal to answer questions from the press about his speech in the Croatian town of Glina in 1995 when it was under the occupation of the Serb rebel forces, and the HND says that Vučić’s behaviour amounts to the pressure on reporters, which is unacceptable in a democracy.
During his tour of the town of Dvor na Unio on Tuesday, Vučić accused a reporter of the N1 commercial broadcaster of making up things, and Vučić also considered the questions about his war-mongering speech as insults against him, the HND recalls.
Vučić claimed that the reporter Elvir Mešanović insinuated that Vučić mentioned a Great Serbia in his speech in Glina in 1995, however, the reporter reminded Vučić that there was proof that he had used that term.
The HND says that Vučić who keeps commenting in disrespectful and insolent manner on journalists in his country when they do their job and ask him questions, acted in the same way during his visit to Croatia.
The association says that being the head of state, Vučić is obliged to answer questions from the press and that he has no right to label reporters’ questions “insults, harangue, and fabrications” and utter untruths in parallel. Any politician who behaves in that way exerts pressure on reporters and media, which is unacceptable in any decent society.
The HND also criticises an unofficial request from the Office of Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović forwarded to Croatian reporters not to ask Vučić questions in connection with his speech in Glina. Two media outlets — RTL and N1 — have confirmed that they have received such suggestion.
The HND also explains that the questions forwarded to Vučić about his speech in Glina are in function of attempts to make Vučić face his political past.
Disrespect for and imposition of restrictions on the journalistic profession clash with efforts to bring about truth and develop the relations between the two countries, the HND says.
