‘Stop Censorship!' Public Movement made an official statement concerning the motivation of dismissal of Oleksandr Chalenko, a Segodnya newspaper observer.

 
The complete text of the statement follows:

 
‘Stop Censorship!' Movement considers dismissal from job for publishing information important to the society inadmissible; this is what happened to Oleksandr Chalenko, a journalist from Segodnya.

 
According to the journalist's personal explanations, the main reason for his dismissal was his public mentioning on the air at Inter channel of the fact that the owner of Segodnya is Rinat Akhmetov, which might have adverse effect on the audience's confidence in the edition, as the editor thinks. The editorial did no by any means disclaim that statement but subjected its observer to repressive actions instead.

 
Notwithstanding Oleksandr Chalenko's unfriendly attitude towards ‘Stop Censorship!' Movement, we think that this occasion means violation of one of basic principles of democracy; i.e. transparency of information pertaining to media ownership.

 
We also emphasize inadmissibility of dismissal of a journalist for publishing facts that are important to the society, which is equal to censorship.

 
Reference

 
Stop Censorship!' Public Movement was created on May 21st, 2010. The movement is an informal association of journalists created in response to opression of the freedom of speech in Ukraine.

 
This is an initiative of Ukrainian journalists and public media organization to defend freedom of speech, prevent establishing censorship in Ukraine, fighting impediments to professional activities of journalists and violation of professional standards in covering social and political issues.

 
‘Stop Censorship!' Public Movement does not support any political force and is not funded by any political party.

 
You may learn more about ‘Stop Censorship!' Movement or join it here. 

 
‘Stop Censorship!' Blog: http://stopcensorship.wordpress.com/, in Twitter: http://twitter.com/Stopcensorship.

 
Contact Person: Artem Sokolenko,'Stop Censorship!' Press Center Coordinator: censor.stop@gmail.com.