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Croa tia's moderate rulers, who took over from nationalists in early 2000 pledging the country's transformation into a genuine European democracy, inflicted a serious blow to media freedom with recent changes of the penal code.

The Croatian Journalists' Association (HND) voiced its "grave concern" on Wednesday with the changes of the penal code, adopted by the parliament last week, saying that it harmed freedom of speech by making media vulnerable to prosecution notably for libel.

Croatian journalists could previously be acquitted of libel charges if they could prove there was no intent to "harm the dignity and reputation of an individual".

But the amended penal code undercuts that argument.

Now, a journalist charged with libel will have to prove that the information published was either true, or that he or she had a reason to believe that it was.

Libel could be punished with up to a one-year prison term.

The journalists' group said that other amendments to the penal code were also worrying, including the criminalisation of an act, which harms the reputation of judges, state prosecutors and public notaries.

In other former communist countries keen to bring their legal system in line with Western laws and legal practice, libel was being decriminalised, it warned.

"Changes within Croatian legislation have the opposite tendencies," the association said.

"Even the biggest cynics could not have foreseen that the new authorities will attack freedom of speech and freedom of media even more severely and often starting from more retrograde premises than the former rulers," Vesna Alaburic, a lawyer, wrote in a Jutarnji List independent daily column earlier this week.

Alaburic also warned against a draft law on media describing it as a "definite regression" compared with the current law and stressing that it would "restrict media freedom".

As an example she cited a provision according to which the current ban on publishing of state and military secrets would be extended to "official, business, professional and other secrets".

In addition, an editor-in-chief would be held responsible for the damage caused by the published information instead of a publisher, which, Alaburic warned, could lead to self-censorship.

However, Prime Minister Ivica Racan hinted that the government might consider changing disputed changes of the penal code, by replacing jail terms with fines.

Until now Croatia has seen positive reforms regarding media freedom since the center-left coalition took over from nationalists.

During the almost decade-long nationalist rule independent media, which accused the authorities of trying to abuse them as a political tool, faced a string of libel cases.

Media freedom is among the criteria that Zagreb has to meet in order to advance its bid to join the European Union.

Croatia applied for EU membership in February and is hoping to join the bloc, along with Bulgaria and Romania, in 2007. - Sapa-AFP.

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