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.
Journalists of the TSN news programme have issued an open letter yesterday accusing the 1+1 TV station of censoring their bulletins. According to the 15 journalists who signed the letter, the “last straw” was the station’s decision to edit out footage of a fight between the opposition and ruling majority in parliament, during a broadcast on 2 May. Oleksandr Tkachenko, general director of 1+1 has denied the charges and accused the journalists of lacking “professionalism”.
President Viktor Yanukovych has said he will support journalists’ right to free expression. Yanukovych was responding a police attack on journalists at the Ekspres newspaper in the town of Lviv last week. This was the fourth such attack since Yanukovych assumed office in February.
A defamation case brought against the chief editor of Rodnoye Priyapovy, Sergei Shvedko, for doubting aspects of a 1930s famine has been squashed, creating a legal precedent. Businessman Vasily Kovalenko brought the case over an article that stated the Soviet famine — known as Holodomor— was not genocide against the Ukrainian people in particular. Kovalenko cited the constitution which outlaws Holodomor denial. But the court ruling stated Shevdko’s article “did not deny the fact of Holodomor” and was “subjective opinion”.