Piramida Affair: Homeland War vs. Oprah

The resignation of Tanja Šimić as director of programming at HTV is on its way to becoming a fully-fledged scandal: while Jutarnji list implies that her 'punishment' for allowing Croatian Serb politician Rade Leskovac to appear on the Piramida talk show threatens to reintroduce the socialist-era crime of verbal delict, her opponents continue to accuse her of an inappropriate attitude to the Homeland War.

Milorad Pupovac, the parliamentary deputy from the Serb national minority, considers that the affair is 'a witch hunt, rather than looking for responsiblity for hate speech':

On HTV certain reporters and editors continually use hate speech, praise the NDH [WW2-era Independent State of Croatia], insult members of the Serb community, relativise war crimes. But to date they haven't been punished.'

HDZ deputy Andrija Hebrang, however, accuses Šimić of not treating the memory of the war with the respect it deserves:

'She apparently can't stand the truth about the Homeland War. When I complained because one programme about the war was being shown at 4pm on a Friday, she said that the Oprah show goes out at the same time as well. With that she was equating the importance of the Homeland War and the Oprah show.'

Were Leskovac's comments a justifiable expression of free speech? Not according to Hebrang, who told JL that 'it isn't an expression of free speech, but an expression of attitudes against the Croatian state'.