Human Rights House Zagreb (HRHZ) organized its Annual Human Rights Conference on 15 and 20 April 2021. The second day of the Conference was held on April 20 and it focused on specific issues relevant to the respect of the rule of law in Croatia. 

The discussion Media freedoms in Croatia – the impact of libel and defamation lawsuits, organised in cooperation with Crosol, brought together media workers and experts in the field of media law. It referred to the continuation of the trend of lawsuits against journalists in Croatia and the issue of the so-called SLAPP lawsuits (Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation) on the entire EU level as well as its results in the imposition of censorship and deterrence from investigative journalism.

The participants were Hrvoje Zovko, president of Croatian Journalist Association, Vesna Alaburić, attorney at law, Maja Sever, president of the Trade Union of Croatian Journalists and George Stafford from European Implementation Network (EIN), while the discussion was moderated by Ivan Novosel, programme director at Human Rights House Zagreb.

The discussion was organised within the project ‘Towards an open, fair and sustainable Europe in the world – EU Presidency Project 2019-2021’.