NIK Titanic because of cartoons in court: in these caricatures I dealt with the situation in Dinamo

I am a political-social cartoonist. In 24 hours, I have been drawing from the very beginning and in those 20 years I draw and publish two caricatures a day. So far, I have published more than 15,000 caricatures in which I have covered all relevant topics in Croatia, from high politics, sports, entertainment and other segments of public life, said Nikola Plecko, Alija Nik Titanic at the Zagreb Municipal Criminal Court.

The cartoonist was sued by the former head of the General Crime Department of Zagreb and former Dinamo board member Kresimir Antolic due to his corruption and accompanying text published in 24 hours for insults. Three cartoons, the « cop » and « druker » are disputed.
Setting the defense of Nikola Plecko, he said that it was generally known that the chartature was the strongest means of public criticism.

– My job in 24 hours is critical of looking at people and events in social life. I have never accessed these topics so far with the intention or intention to offend someone personally. In this particular case, I did not know the private prosecutor personally, but was interesting to me solely because of my public position, and at that time it was a member of the GNK Dinamo Management Board, certainly the most important and famous club in Croatia. Since 2005 and the beginnings of my work as a cartoonist Zdravko Mamic has been the head of the club. In a period of 15 years, he also drew between 500 and 1000 caricatures of Mamic in the lead role, which were much more provocative of these three in the lawsuit – Plecko said.

He emphasized that the caricature itself indicates some social events or phenomena in an exaggerated way, exaggerating, since it comes from the word, the verbs of Caricara, which in Italian means exaggerating.

– She is provocative, many times very explicit and, as such, is the strongest means of public criticism. Every society that holds to itself nurtures a caricature just as such, and all public persons who have come to their position must be ready for public criticism. As for concrete caricatures, no private prosecutor has been appointed anywhere, but a character stated in caricatures that the subject of the lawsuit is a symbol of the situation in which Dinamo was at the time when they were created – the cartoonist explained.

Regarding two disputed allegations, nouns « cops » and « druker » stated that the caricature exaggerated both visually and verbally, and flirted with colloquial (folk) speech. Regarding the noun « Pandur », it is generally known that the private prosecutor came to the head of the club’s security chief from the MUP, which he did not even dispute. Hence the « cop », which is a colloquial term for a cop. Regarding the term « druker », it was not in a negative context, but it was referred to the so -called. The « black lists » which the private prosecutor himself talked about – said Nikola Plecko, who at the request of his defendant Vanja Juric explained what was shown on one of the caricatures and why.

He also said that all the information and inspiration for caricatures pump from all leading media in Croatia, and so did the information that the « black lists » were introduced after the arrival of the private prosecutor in Dinamo, as well as that some were found there, who may not have been there.
In his final speech, lawyer Rafael Krešić, who represented Antolic at this discussion, said that he considered the defendant to commit a criminal offense of insult to his caricatures.

– In particular, caricatures and accompanying text rudely violated the reputation and honor of the private prosecutor. There was no justified public interest in the publication of such caricatures, and the defendant’s actions were not in good faith – said Krešić.

And while he asked the court to blame Pleča, his defender Vanja Juric believes that there is no unlawfulness in his treatment.

– It is important in this proceedings that it is not a criminal offense, but about the permissible criticism, satire, public figures. The disputed caricatures are a value court of cartoonists on the basis of factual allegations and topics covered by all other media in the same period. These factual allegations were largely confirmed by the private prosecutor himself, saying that he had indeed come to Dinamo from the MUP, that Mamic remained the club advisor even after he went to BiH and that he was associated with the so-called. « Black lists, » Juric said.

She stated that the European Court of Human Rights appointed standards regarding the question of satire to protect the freedom of expression, which was accepted by the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia.

Namely, from the decision of the Constitutional Court in the famous Bujanec case against News Bar, it follows that « satire is a specific form of artistic expression and social comment that, with its inherent features of exaggeration and distortion, naturally seek to provoke and upset » and that « any intercourse of free expression in this context must be assessed with special care. »

The court will impose a final verdict with a cartoonist on Monday, June 16th.