Live Chat with Marko Rakar, Croatian Blogger 15. April 2010 – 11:41 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)

[See the full text and summary of the Live Chat on www.internet-discourse.eu]

Despite the turmoil surrounding his recent arrest, Marko Rakar has kindly agreed to take part in a PEP-NET live chat about eParticipation in Central and Eastern Europe. Marko, winner of the 2009 eDemocracy Award, founded the Croatian blog pollitika.com, which has a monthly readership of 150,000 and where 2,000 articles are published every year.
The live chat will take place from 10:30-12:00 CET this Friday, 16th April, as part of PEP-NET’s Online Discourse on eParticipation in Central and Eastern Europe.

Marko has been in the headlines in the past few days because he was accused of publishing a list of Croatian war veterans, which is a state secret. He categorically denies involvement and emphasises that he voluntarily went to police when he found out about rumours circulating on the internet suggesting that he was behind the site. You can read his description of events on his blog.

Marco was not charged for any crime. Investigations to find out who is responsible for posting information about Croatian war veterans’ continue.

Marko’s bio, as it appears on eapc.eu, is:

“Marko Rakar (1972) is Chief executive manager of the consulting company MRAK services ltd. Marko has a lifelong experience in working/writing for media as well as dealing with media. He combines his media knowledge with new technologies and was one of the earliest internet adopters in Croatia. He is a recognized lecturer and consultant the subjects of organisation, internet, new media as well as politics. He ran a number of races for national parties and independent candidates on both parliament and muncipal elections. Marko studied Philosophy and Information sciences, University of Zagreb, speaks english fluently and is regular collumnist and author to a number of blogs and web sites in Croatia and internationaly. Marko is a member of EAPC (Europan association of political consultants) and IAPC (International association of political consultants).”

To see a recent PEP-NET blog article about him, click here.

We will be using CoverItLive to take questions and moderate comments so you don’t have to register to participate. We will also monitor the #pepnet Twitter hashtag for questions and comments relevant to the chat. At the time of the discussion, you will see a news item on the PEP-NET Online Discourse which will direct you to the chat.

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