28 April 2016

The only daily newspaper in Italian language La voce del popolo for the Italian minority in Croatia and Slovenia is facing great financial difficulties. Croatia's minister of culture Zlatko Hasanbegović has made public the list of media institutions that are to be funded by the ministry in the future. Among the listed, most of the left or liberal oriented media will receive fewer or no funds at all compared to past years. One of the newspapers that will suffer the most is La voce del popolo. Its importance goes beyond the content. Established by the Italian antifascists and partisans in 1944 in Rijeka, for more than 70 years it has been an essential element marking the existence of the Italian minority in Croatia as well as in Slovenia. Ministry of culture decided to slash the funding of Edit, publishing house responsible for publishing La voce del popolo. For the next year, it will receive half as much funds as it was receiving until now. The year after that, its funding from the Croatian state will be completely abolished. Underfunding of politically unfavorable media outlets is just the latest blatant attack on media freedom in Croatia.

 Radio Student: read the full article in Slovenian