The murder of journalist Ivo Pukanic and his colleague Niko Franjic represents an escalation of organized crime activities, and we call on Croatian authorities to urgently conduct an investigation and bring those responsible for this act to justice, stated Aidan White, General Secretary of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), on Friday for Hina.
"I am absolutely shocked; this is a targeted attack on journalists. This is a very dangerous escalation of organized crime activities," said White, commenting on the assassination of Pukanic, a journalist for Nacional and CEO of the NCL group, and Franjic, the marketing director of Nacional, who were killed in a bomb explosion in downtown Zagreb on Thursday evening. "Pukanic was attacked back in April, and now the question arises as to what has been done about that and whether it has been investigated," said White, adding that he is in contact with Croatian colleagues from the Croatian Journalists’ Association "to see what we can do to protect journalists." "We call on the authorities to find the perpetrators as soon as possible and bring them to justice," emphasized the General Secretary of the European journalists’ association based in Brussels. (H)
