GONG Demands Elimination of Double Standards on Civic Rights Matters

09 June 2008

GONG joined the demands of Croatian journalists for the state to take more decisive steps in the fight with violent crime and corruption and to discover and apprehend those who ordered and perpetrated the attack on Dusan Miljus and all other attacks on public personalities over the past several months.

GONG also expressed its discontent over the fact that the journalists were allowed to gather and protest in the St. Mark Square in Zagreb, which have been off limits, by Law, for public gatherings since 2005, but the Government denied that right to the employees of the `Mungos` demining company who protested the late salaries.

The organization comments that application of double standards that differ between citizens, making the same rights accessible to certain groups, but not to others, is one of the main reasons for the blocked functioning of institutions and puts the citizens into a variety of legal uncertainties.

-We could understand the fact that the journalists were allowed to exercise the right denied to Mungos employees as attempt to suck up to journalists in order to secure a better public image, in spite of the fact that the good public image is built, above all, on contents, rule of law and high democratic standards, says GONG.

GONG invited the Sabor (Croatian Parliament) to change the Law on Public Gatherings to give St. Mark Square to all citizens, noting that the Government itself broke the Law recently, during the visit by U.S. President Bush.