Posts Tagged ‘Ukraine’
March 22nd, 2011
Former president Leonid Kuchma is being
investigated over the murder of opposition journalist Georgiy Gongadze. A
criminal probe has been opened against Kuchma, according to a report by Ukrainska Pravda, which Gongadze founded. Georgiy Gongadze was often critical of Kuchma and his administration. He was kidnapped and
murdered in 2000. In 2010 the
prosecutors claimed that ex-interior minister Yury Kravchenko ordered the killing. Kravchenko is believed to have
committed suicide in 2005. This investigation comes despite a court decision
preventing such a probe.
February 14th, 2011
Journalist and blogger Olena Bilozerska has managed to
recover some of the equipment and material which was
illegally seized from her home in Kiev on 12 January. The police interrogation on 8 February included
questions about her sources. The police returned some items but have kept 162 CDs and DVDs which contain material needed for her work. She regained her camera and video camera, neither of which was working. The authorities also returned her computer, which had been dismantled.
February 8th, 2011
Kyiv’s city general architect has been
officially reprimanded for locking a journalist in a room during a council meeting. The incident took place at a meeting of Kyiv’s planning council on the 2 February. Serhiy Tselovalnyk walked past a group of journalists, ignoring their requests for comment. Olha Koshelenko, a journalist for the 1+1 television company, pursued him, and he forced her into a utility room and locked the door. Koshelenko was eventually released. City chairman Oleksandr Popov condemned Tselovalnyk’s actions.
December 9th, 2010
The
prosecutor general’s office has completed its investigation into the role that Oleksiy Pukach, a former intelligence office played in the murder of journalist
Georgiy Gongadze and has announced is unable to lay any further charges despite evidence linking politicians to the murder. Pukach who at the time of the killing was the chief of the external surveillance department at the Ukrainian Interior Ministry will be put on trial in January. Gongadze was a Ukrainian journalist of Georgian descent killed in 2000. He was
investigating high-level corruption allegedly involving senior officials, including president Leonid Kuchma. In March 2008, three former police officers were convicted for their role in Gongadze’s murder.
September 20th, 2010
The unsolved case of Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze highlights concerns for press freedom in post-Soviet states
(more…)
September 6th, 2010
A witness in the case of
missing journalist Vasyl Klymentyev has also gone missing. According to deputy editor Petro Matvienko,
the key witness disappeared last week. He refused to reveal the person’s name for fear of jeopardising the investigation, but said he had verified the information with law enforcement agencies. The
police department in Kharkiv claimed no knowledge of the witness’s disappearance. In a further development, Klymentyev’s lawyer was
locked in his appartment by police. Officers forced their way into Vyacheslav Ismaylov’s home on 2 September, and barricaded him inside, saying they were investigating a case involving him. The newspaper lawyer fears that police could plant something in the appartment that would be compromising to him.
August 24th, 2010
Police in eastern Ukraine have reclassified the case of a missing journalist as ”
premeditated murder“. Vasyl Klymentyev, chief editor and reporter for newspaper Novyi Stil, was
last seen on 11 August getting into a BMW with an unknown man. The Kharkiv-based weekly newspaper is well known for reporting on corruption in local government and law enforcement. Klymentyev’s most recent articles criticised a local prosecutor and head of the regional fiscal police, and the
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged investigators to focus on his journalism as a motive.
Klymentyev’s deputy said that the editor had been threatened several times before and had been offered bribes to keep damaging information quiet.
June 11th, 2010
The broadcast licences of TV5 Kanal and TVi have been
cancelled by the courts. The two stations are regarded as being critical of President Viktor Yanukovych’s administration. The day before this decision was taken, journalists at TV5 Kanal released an
open letter claiming they were being harassed by the SBU, Ukraine’s main security agency. The wife of
SBU director, Valeriy Khoroshkovskiy, runs one of TV5 and TVi’s competitors.
