Croatian first European blogger to go to Prison
The worst nightmare for a blogger has happened to the Vukovar resident Damir Fintic, who has been convicted, 20 days in prison for a comment published on his blog www.vukovarac.net back in 2005.
The critical comment on his blog, was related to a post about Vukovar’s mayor Vladimir Stengl and his wife Dragica, the person commenting on his blog, had written critically about circumstances in relation to a real estate purchase by the Strengl family. The Strengl family pressed charges against Fintic and demanded 250.000 kuna (33.000 Euro) in damage.
As Fintic is not able to pay the fine, his has to go in prison in Osijek for 20 day, starting from the 27th of October, after he finish his time in prison he actually will have to go a second time, as he was also convicted for a second incident related to the Vukovar mayor Stengl.
The Croatian Journalists Association (HND), believe, that Croatia, being the first country in Europe to verdict a blogger, could change the worlds picture of Croatia in terms of respect to the freedom of speech.
Fintic told the press, that he was actually offered money from other people to pay his fine, but as he don’t see that he did anything wrong in opening a public forum, he refused to accept the money.
He also stated: “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 apparently been very active in pressing charges against blogs, the media and journalists, in total they have press charges of 100,000 Euros for psychic pains.
You can read more about the story on Fintic page her
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