ZAGREB, May 7, 2019 – The Ethics Commission on Tuesday issued a warning to the Živi Zid party and ordered it to remove without delay numerous ‘hate’ comments below two articles about migrants that incite hate and violence, and called on the party’s members to publicly apologise for violating the election ethics code.
The commission determined that Živi Zid had violated the election ethics code because of the negative comments on the party’s official Facebook profile below links to articles published by two web portals about migrants and that the party did not delete ‘hate’ comments or those inciting to violence.
The commission was referring to comments made following an article by the Teleskop.hr web portal about houses being broken into and crosses and property being destroyed by migrants. The RTL private TV station also ran a story about a married couple whose house was broken into by migrants while they were sleeping.
The Gong NGO that monitors election procedures submitted a complaint to the ethics commission about the contentious comments on the Živi Zid’s FB profile regarding the two stories.
The commission determined that by posting links to the two stories about migrants the Živi Zid knew that this would lead to negative comments which contained hate speech and, as such, acted irresponsibly and in contradiction of election ethical standards.
The commission added that it regrets that public space in Croatia is burdened with a low level of culture in communication and with rampant hate speech, particularly in Facebook comments on media reports. However, in the context of the election process, special responsibility lies on those participating in the election to promote a culture of dialogue and to prevent any form of hate speech and incitement to hate and violence, the Ethics Commission said.
More news about Živi Zid can be found in the Politics section.
