On 12 May 2022, a film crew with Suspilne Kropyvnytskiy, a local branch of the Ukrainian national TV broadcaster Suspilne, was denied entry into the Kropyvnytskiy town hall to report from a session of the city council. Journalist Oleksandr Smetanko said that the session had not been officially announced online, but that the channel had learned of it from other sources. Council employees allegedly told the Suspilne film crew that they could not attend the session due to the “legal regime of martial law”, adding that information on the session had not been disclosed to the public. A lawyer with IMI, a Kyiv-based media NGO, said that the council’s decision amounted to breaking legislation on freedom of information, stating that to restrict access, the council should have first adopted a decision on conducting a closed doors session, which did not seem to be the case.
Russia-Ukraine WarAccess restricted to officials / press conferencesRestrictions on access to information