Zovko

Hrvoje Zovko, president of the Croatian Journalists' Association. HND. Photo: SNH

The Croatian public broadcaster, HRT, confirmed on Tuesday that it had again sacked Hrvoje Zovko, a veteran reporter and president of the Croatian Journalists' Association, HND, for violent behaviour in the workplace. Zovko did not receive an official notice terminating his employment.

Consider the borderline authoritarianism that has ensconced itself in EU member states like Poland and Hungary; or the alarming gains made by the far right in such "established" European democracies as Austria, Germany, and Italy; or the brutal border regime that the EU maintains along its Mediterranean frontier - a border regime, we should recall, that at the current rate will likely result in

Reporters Without Borders said in a statement on Tuesday that a series of threatening messages sent to Croatian journalists recently were intended "to attack, intimidate and smear journalists to the point of dissuading them from pursuing their mission to report the news".

Lawmakers in Croatia will discuss on Wednesday a spate of lawsuits filed by the country's public broadcaster against journalists, media outlets and journalism associations, a practice critics say amounts to an attack on media freedom.

The cases brought by Croatian Radio-Television, HRT, will be on the agenda of parliament's Committee on Information, Computerisation and Media.

HRT has been criticised again for sacking Hrvoje Zovko, one of its journalists and editors, who is also the president of the Croatian Journalists' Association, CJA, amid an ongoing row over an alleged right-wing 'purge' at the pubic broadcaster.