ZAGREB -- Croatian state television (HRT) aired a controversial concert of a pro-Ustasha performer Sunday.

HRT representatives rebuffed criticism directed at them for broadcasting Marko "Tompson" Perkovic’s concert on prime time Sunday evening.

HRT acting Director Željko Vela said that there was nothing controversial about the decision.

“It was the musical event attended by more than 40,000 people, and we now wish to keep politics at bay here. HRT is a public television station, and the government has no authority over its program and editorial policy,” he said.

Jerusalem-based Simon Wiesenthal Center protested against broadcasting the concert that took place on June 17 in Zagreb, over a public display of Ustasha symbols and chanting of Ustasha slogans that occurred at the event.

The center’s Director Efraim Zuroff said that the affirmative display of Ustasha’s and ultra-nationalistic symbols at Tompson’s concert was “neither a mistake nor coincidence” and that airing of the footage constituted for an “acclaim of hate speech on the part of the Croatian government as well, since HRT is state television.”

Reacting to Zurrof’s statement, government Spokesman Ratko Macek said Sunday that the government had “no influence on any media outlet in Croatia, including HRT.”

Macek reminded that the government condemned attempts to use and display symbols and slogans typical of Croatia’s Nazi puppet Ustasha regime that was in power during WWII.

Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader said Croatia was not created on “Ustasha foundations,” rather on the “Homeland War”—referring to the 1991-1992 war in that country—and European values.

b92.net