Monday, Nov. 30, 2009

Don't Mess with Croatia

You'd be hard-pressed to come up with any actual political change birthed in a Facebook group. But Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader is taking no chances. After 22-year-old Niksa Klecak started a group called "I bet I can find 5,000 people who dislike Sanader" in 2008, Croatian police arrested him. Authorities say it wasn't Klecak's politics that gave offense, but the digitally altered image of Sanader in a Nazi uniform featured on the group's page, which allegedly violated a Croatian law against Nazi propaganda. Critics, however, were dubious, calling the arrest an indication of Sanader's lack of respect for laws protecting freedom of expression. Klecak was later released after providing evidence he was not the user who posted the photo.