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.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT4no1-Hfqk
On Monday, government officials attempted to prevent publication of an embarrassing video of President Viktor Yanukovych. The video shows a burst of wind flinging a wreath at the President during an official ceremony with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev. Despite the government’s best efforts, it was obtained by the website Ukrayinska Pravda from an undisclosed television crew, and posted on YouTube. Yanukovych and Medvedev were attending a ceremony to commemorate World War II veterans.
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.