Ukraine’s Higher Administrative Court on Wednesday upheld a decision by a court in Kiev cancelling the allocation of broadcasting frequencies to two privately-run TV channels – TVi and 5 Kanal.
A representative of TVi said the administrative court fully upheld the lower court’s decision without explanation or modification.
The lower court last year cancelled the allocation of analogue broadcast frequencies following allegations of irregularities in the manner in which the stations were awarded licences. Critics have accused Valeriy Khoroshkovsky, who owns rival media holding company Inter Media Group and who heads the country’s security service, of being behind the cancellation, but Khoroshkovsky has strongly denied the allegation.
TVi, which sought to renew all of its licenses in the contested application, instead lost all of its licenses. Kanal lost only the new licenses it had been awarded, limiting its broadcast reach across the vast country.
TVi Chief Executive Mykola Kniazhytskyi told the International Press Institute (IPI) that his station would seek a re-examination of the decision by the Higher Administrative Court, and would also turn to the European Court for Human Rights.
IPI Acting Director Alison Bethel McKenzie condemned the court’s decision.
“This ruling is a blow to media freedom in the Ukraine, and severely weakens the ability of Ukrainians to obtain unbiased information, an absolutely vital commodity for citizens in an emerging democracy,” she said. “We remain gravely concerned by the deterioration of media freedom in Ukraine and we call on the Higher Administrative Court to re-examine its decision.”
A TVi representative said the channel could petition for review by Ukraine’s Supreme Court, but judged the chances of success as “basically zero” given that the channel would need the administrative court’s approval to proceed before the high court.
The channel still broadcasts on cable and posts to its website, but TVi’s representative said the channel’s cable provider was already facing pressure not to extend the channel’s contract.
Kniazhytskyi cried foul in the wake of the decision, saying that TVi had received information that Khoroshkovsky had placed pressure on the Higher Administrative Court’s judges.
“I am not saying that Mr. Khoroshkovsky called one of the judges at our court hearing, but I am saying that such a phone call to this court did take place,” he commented. “As journalists, we are investigating this matter …
“[The decision] proves once again the introduction of censorship in our country, and this is done to ensure that independent broadcasters in general cannot speak, and that justice is irrelevant.”
TVi had attempted to sway the Higher Administrative Court by demonstrating its merit through the formation last week of an international editorial board containing a number of high-profile figures, including former Czechoslovakia and later Czech President Vaclav Havel, but to no avail.
Other members of the board include Adam Michnik, the editor-in-chief of Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and a leading democratic organizer in that country during the communist era; former Slovak cultural minister Ladislav Snopko; and Myroslav Marynovych, the vice-rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv who founded Amnesty International Ukraine and helped found the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.
According to Ukrainian media experts, 5 Kanal and TVi are among the few Ukrainian television channels that provide independent news coverage. Natalia Ligacheva, chief editor of Kyiv-based Telekritika media watchdog, said in May last year that the stations were the only remaining channels the group considered as unbiased.
