pollitika Neovisni, ali ne i neutralni

Engleska verzija priče, koju je pripremio, prilagodio, pokušao izreći dovoljno jasno bloger bet - nalazi se u nastavku... Ja sam taj opis večeras poslao na: SEEMO, article19.com, Reporters without borders, European commission.

Može li pomoć oko destinacija kojima bi još trebalo uputiti pismo/opis slučaja?

News from Croatia: A harsh court verdict shuts mouth to the critic voices on the Croatian Web

This is a story from Croatia, a story about a legal battle with a grotesque ending, between a powerful local politician – mayor of the city of Vukovar and member of the Croatian Parliament (Sabor) Mr. Vladimir Štengl and a naïve Internet enthusiast Mr. Damir Fintić. This is a story from the edge of legal practice related to the freedom of speech on the Internet and the responsibilities for a written word in the cyberspace, where firm rules do not exist yet and are just about to be defined.

The story is important because its sets a dangerous precedent in Croatian legal practice, in a situation when the Internet, through its openness and untamed freedom, has just appeared as the fifth pole of the shaken democratic rule in the country, strangled by excessive political corruption, politically-dependent judicial system and self-censored public media, creating a hope for a just and prosperous development of Croatia.

But, what did exactly happen?

Website vukovarac.net has been established as a non-profit enterprise by Mr. Damir Fintić back in 2002, aimed at serving as a web programming and design exercise for its founder, and providing a virtual meeting point for Vukovar's citizens and friends. Funds available for the site maintenance were drained already a year after the launch of the site, but in the following years, displaced Vukovar's citizens from all around the World provided donations for coverage of the domain and server expenses. Soon after its launch, vukovarac.net became an important place for all those emotionally and physically related to Vukovar, a place for creating and re-establishing contacts, exchanging e-mail addresses, uploading nostalgic photographs from the past, communicating and getting the latest news from their town...

By late 2004, vukovarac.net invited its users to contribute by some serious writing about things of common interest. The numerous contributions - both the anonymous ones hidden behind their nicks as well as those who wrote under their true identity, covered a wide spectrum of themes – health, cooking, love and passion, human relations, politics... Even some journalists used the site as a vehicle for publishing of some sensitive stories which were too hot for the local newspaper. One of these “columns”, written by an anonymous author under the nick “special-agent”, dealt critically with the work of the Vukovar city’s administration, some particular individuals from that administration, as well as about his views on various political themes.

The columns by “special-agent” became very popular, attracting many readers and commentators, since it was apparent that “special-agent” has had an excellent insight into the activities of the city's administration at a close range.

On June 7, 2005, “special-agent” wrote an article “A farewell letter to the dearest of them all” (“Oproštajno pismo najmilijem od svih”), addressing obviously the person and activities of the Vukovar’s mayor Mr. Štengl. The article was followed by a number of anonymous comments, which have questioned the morality and legality of mr. Štengl’s public work and the methods and circumstances for his and his family’s private wealth accumulation. Furthermore, the comments included several extremely rude personal remarks to the mayor’s wife ms. Štengl.

Less than a week later, on June 13th, 2005, Mr. Štengl's attorney mr Zvonimir Hodak, one of the most prominent and well-connected lawyers in Croatia, contacted the owner of vukovar.net requesting, in accordance with the Article 40 of the Croatian “Media Law“, the incriminating article and comments being removed from the site, asking the owner of vukovarac.net to write an apology and to deliver the information on the identity of the article's author, in no more than 8 days.

Mr. Fintić did not comply with the request, concluding that he could not do it since the vukovarac.net was not a medium in terms as described in the Croatian “Media law”. He believed then that the controversial content contributed to the otherwise suppressed debate on important issues for the local society and as such deserved to remain public. Also, he did not know practically how to identify the person hidden behind the nick “special-agent“, and those who anonymously provided nasty comments.

Instead, he wrote an article „For now without a title“, refusing to make a precedent by deleting some content from his website and defended vukovarac.net as a place of free speech, where anybody, including the mayor and his supporters could easily defend their position.

That turned to be a grave mistake.

By July 4th, 2005, Mr. and Ms. Štengl filed four separate lawsuites against mr. Fintić in the local Court in Vukovar:

- Mr. Štengl – criminal charges after the Article 201 of the Criminal Law, requesting Mr. Fintić pronounced guilty for libel and insult, and requesting a public apology;

- Ms. Štengl – criminal charges after the Article 201 of the Criminal Law, requesting Mr. Fintić pronounced guilty for libel and insult, and requesting a public apology;

- Mr. Štengl – civil charges requesting a financial compensation for the psychogenic pain caused by reading the incriminating article, amounting to 101,000 HRK (about 15,000 EUR);

- Ms. Štengl – civil charges requesting a financial compensation for the psychogenic pain caused by reading the incriminating article, amounting to 101,000 HRK (about 15,000 EUR).

The amounts put forward in the indictments were exorbitantly high for Mr. Fintić, and with his current income would be sufficient to ruin him financially for years to come.

Mr. Fintić regarded the charges for psychogenic pain totally absurd and, considering the case a precedent in Croatia, he distributed a copy of the indictment documents to some 50 e-mail addresses, including various media, institutions and public persons in Croatia, intending to inform the public about this unique case and asking for help against a powerful political person intending to ruin him. A scanned copy of the file was uploaded on the vukovarac.net, and followed by a plea to the public to support his case.

Mr. Fintić found himself on very insecure grounds, since he has never before had any conflict with law. But, he was convinced that this case was all about demonstration of power by the politician and that the Court would refuse to open any legal proceedings.

As a response to mr. Fintićs publication of the indictment documents, Ms. Štengl immediately filed another two charges against him:

- July 21st, 2005– criminal charges after the Article 201 of the Criminal Law, requesting Mr. Fintić pronounced guilty for unauthorised publication of personal data;

- September 1st, 2005 – civil charges requesting financial compensation for additional psychogenic pain caused by the publication of the indictment documents (including Ms. Štengl’s psychiatric diagnosis), amounting to 50,000 HRK (about 7,500 EUR).

In the meantime, the Štengl family continued their fierce crusade.

Simultaneously or immediately after the moves against Mr. Fintić, Mr. Štengl sued a journalist Ms. Danijala Mikola for her writing about this case in a national daily 24 SATA (24 HOURS), accusing her for libel. The newspaper was also sued for causing psychogenic pain by publishing the article and the financial compensation of 150,000 HRK (22,000 EUR) was requested.

On September 5th, 2005. Ms Štengl sued the local TV station and a local political opposition activist mr. Marin Krizmanić, requesting another 100,000 HRK (15,000 EUR) for psychogenic pain caused by Mr. Krizmanić’s TV statement concerning the responsibility for an incident related to the town’s swimming pool, where a negative reference was made to Ms. Štengl who at that time held the position of a deputy executive manager of the Vukovar's public water supply company.

Further on, on November 3rd, 2005, mr. Štengl filed charges against another journalist Branimira Bradarić (Večernji List) and the citizen Krizmanić for the article about Štengl's excessive legal charges against his critics, asking for 70,000 HRK (10,000 EUR) compensation for psychogenic pain.

In total Mr. and Ms. Štengl has put the price tag on their psychogenic pain during a half year period to 572,000 HRK (85,000 EUR).

Two years after the story began, an epilogue is about to take shape.

Out of the three civil indictments against Mr. Fintić, requesting financial compensation for psychogenic pain (101,000 + 101,000 + 50,000 HRK), the first two were initially dismissed by the local Court in Vukovar, while the third one was accepted only by the 30% of the requested amount. Mr. Fintić was sentenced to pay 15,000 HRK, but the plaintiff should pay a similar amount to the defendant for the process expenses.

On the contrary, Mr. Fintić was found guilty in all three criminal charges concerning libel and insult, by the same Court. The Court has justified the verdict by stating that a criminal offence was committed by Mr. Fintić, who failed to prevent libel and insults to the Štengl family through his website. Throughout the process, the issue of actual identity of the actual contributors to the incriminating writings, including the defendant himself as a possible suspect, was never put forward as relevant by any of the parties.

During 2007, two of the three verdicts on criminal charges were verified by a higher level, County Court. The Court rejected both the defendant’s and the plaintiffs’ pleas, and the Local Court’s verdicts were definitively confirmed. In one of cases, Mr. Fintić was sentenced to 4 month imprisonment and payment of the process costs (this was effectuated recently by confiscation of Mr. Fintić’s home inventory). In the second one, the sentence included a fine of 3,100 HRK (convertible to imprisonment of 20 days, if case of a failed reimbursement), and payment of the process costs. This is about to be effectuated by the confiscation of Mr. Fintić’s remaining home inventory. The third verdict, very similar to the second one, has not been definitely verified yet, but the expectation is that the result will be similar to the previous two.

The County Court also took a harsh stance on the three civil charges for psychogenic pain. On November 20th, 2007, consent was given to the plaintiffs’ appeals on the Local Court verdicts, sending the two first cases (101,000 + 101,000 HRK) back to the Local Court for repeated processing. A bleak outcome for Mr. Fintić can easily be anticipated.

In the third case, the fine was extended to the fully requested amount of 50,000 HRK. Also, Mr. Fintić was ordered to pay for the process costs. By the Court order on January 28, 2008, the payment of 50,000 HRK (plus the processing cost and interest) was put into an instalment scheme which is to be effectuated by confiscation of 1/3 of Mr. Fintićs miserable salary during the coming many years.

Defendants appeals were all rejected.

***

As a threefold convicted criminal with four months imprisonment sentence hanging above his neck, with confiscated home inventory and with prospects to be ruined economically for many years ahead, and all this for allowing others to cause alleged image damage and psychogenic pain to persons he never knew or met personally, Mr. Fintić is very far today from what he expected when he launched his amateur website vukovarac.net. His obvious naivety as a website owner was promptly punished by the political and judicial establishment, which used this golden opportunity to demonstrate its steadfast position in firm treatment of any uncontrolled criticism if and when it becomes too inconvenient to its untouchable members, to the growing population of enthusiastic Croatian netizens - bloggers.

By this “message”, the “system” has effectively shut mouths to numerous critics, who use the Internet to challenge the untouchable politicians and their obscure “businesses” by exposing corruption, fraud and similar socially destructive activities in a lively public debate.

Is this really rightful?

sve 5, ali kako se ovo "kadija te tuži, kadija ti sudi" uklapa u tekst?
inače, po čem je sukob interesa to što ih sin zastupa? zaboga, pa nije valjda da očekuješ da odvjetnik bude nepristran? i treće, kakve veze ima to što nisu bili na bolovanju? svatko se drugačije nosi sa svojim "duševnim bolima"; ja uvijek kažem da nisam kukac pa da se prevrnem na leđa čim mi se nešto dogodi.
*nemoj mislit da se ne slažem s poantom teksta, ali stvarno, ali stvarno! ne volim suvišna dramatiziranja i izvrtanja činjenica tamo gdje to apsolutno nije potrebno.

Dodatak tekstu - link koji nedostaje:
... za takvo nešto razlozi mogu biti samo ovdje
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Znači, u tri krivične presude imamo nekoliko apsurda:
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