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First Croat to go to prison for blog comment
Croatian Times
Vukovar resident Damir Fintic will be the first Croat and possibly the first European who will end up in jail for comments on his blog at www.vukovarac.net in 2005.
Fintic has been sentenced to 20 days in prison for comments written by someone else on his blog criticizing former Vukovar Mayor Vladimir Stengl and his wife Dragica.
Blog visitors have written critical comments about how the Stengls acquired property.
Stengl pressed three criminal and three civil charges against Fintic and demanded a total of 250,000 kunas or 33,311 Euros in damages.
Considering that he had no money with which to pay the damages, Fintic decided to go to prison.
He needs to check himself into Osijek prison on 27 October. After that, he will need to spend time in prison once more for a second fine connected to the Stengl case.
The Croatian Journalists Association (HND) has strongly opposed prison for Fintic. It believes Fintic could be the only blog writer to go to prison in Europe. If that happens, HND fears it will change the picture of Croatia as a country that respects freedom of expression.
Fintic told the daily Novi list he had no money with which to pay damages and had refused to accept money from other people because he did not see anything wrong in opening a public forum on his blog.
He added: "I wanted to offer all Vukovar residents a chance to express their opinions in public. Considering that Vukovar suffered a lot in the Homeland war in the 1990s, I expected intensive comments on my blog. But I need to stress I deleted all insulting comments that expressed animosity towards anyone."
The Stengl family has pressed numerous charges against blogs, the media and journalists, demanding in total almost 100,000 Euros in damages.
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Tag cloud pressed Croatian European damages Croat expression Vukovar Stengl resident total forum money Journalists blog prison Fintic Euros Novi freedom charges
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