The International Press Institute (IPI) and its affiliate, the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), today called on Ukrainian authorities to conduct swift, transparent and thorough investigations into a number of attacks on journalists in recent weeks and to bring the perpetrators to justice.
At least five journalists in Ukraine have said that they were beaten in connection with their work in the last two weeks.
IPI Deputy Director Anthony Mills said: “It is of the utmost importance that these attacks be fully investigated and that the individuals responsible be held accountable. The culture of impunity surrounding such incidents in Ukraine is highly detrimental to press freedom and leads only to self-censorship and silence.”
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Sergei Ostapenko – a television journalist and host of the program “Dosit Movchati” (Enough Being Silent) on Irta TV – was attacked outside his home in the city of Lugansk on Monday. Ostapenko, whose injuries included a broken jaw, has regularly reported on allegations of corruption by the local police, which led the Lugansk police protectorate to file a defamation lawsuit against him last June.
On Saturday, photojournalist Dmitry Kostyukov was arrested in Kiev for “disobeying police orders” while covering a protest by the Ukrainian feminist group Femen, known for its topless protests, during a visit to the city by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill I. The New York Times reported that Kostyukov said a group of men in plainclothes beat him and three female protestors he was photographing before uniformed police officers arrested them. The police claimed the arrest was the result of a failure by the protestors to “cover up their nakedness”, but Kostyukov denied the claim, saying the women had been clothed.
One week earlier, CPJ also reported, unidentified assailants severely beat journalist Oleh Bogdanov in the city of Donetsk. The attack left Bogdanov hospitalised with a broken jaw and nose, and a concussion. Bogdanov – who works for the website “Dorozhny Kontrol” (Radio Control), which reports on abuses by Ukrainian authorities – said he believed the attack was linked to his work.
On July 18, Freedom House reported, police allegedly beat Dmitro Demishev and Andrei Kovalev, journalists at the television station Channel 5, while the pair was covering a demonstration against police brutality in Kiev.
In other news, Ukrainian authorities have confirmed that authorities in Amsterdam detained Ukrainian journalist Anatoliy Shariy at their request. Shariy faces criminal charges of “hooliganism” and “deliberately false reporting of a crime with artificial creation of evidence” in Ukraine. The journalist previously was given refugee status in Lithuania after he fled Ukraine claiming that law enforcement agencies were persecuting him for his work, including his allegations that an illegal drugs trade was operating under the auspices of the Interior Ministry.
