Letter to Jacob Mathew
To Jacob Mathew,
President of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers
1, Washington Place, 64287, Darmstadt, Germany
Dear Mr. Mathew,
We, Ukrainian journalists, united into the movement Stop Censorship!, are writing to you with the request to find and punish offenders, who aggressively treated journalists during the opening of World Newspaper Congress in Kyiv on September, 3, 2012.
Officially accredited to the WAN-IFRA Congress journalists recorded usage of physical force against them, to prevent them from raising posters saying about freedom of speech. In particular, Olena Prytula, an editor-in-chief of the Intrnet publication Ukrainska Pravda (www.pravda.com.ua), established by Georgiy Gongadze, Kateryna Gorchynska, a Deputy Editor-in-chief of Kyiv Post (www.kyivpost.ua), and Oleksandr Argat, a journalist of 5 Kanal Channel.
There is also video with a confession of a fellow from the Department of Civil Protection (DCP) as to the fact that she removed personal belongings (papers) from Tetiana Veremchuk, a journalist of the Internet publication Telekrytyka (www.detector.media). More over, the fellows of DCP blocked the entrance to the WAN-IFRA Congress and rudely behaved with the members of Stop Censorship! Movement: Svitlana Zalishchuk, Victoriya Siumar, Oksana Romaniuk, and Oksana Pryhodko; unknown stole Mustafa Nayem's personal belongings. During the whole period of WAN-IFRA Congress journalists have been followed and recorded on hand cameras by the fellows of DCP and during peaceful protest, journalists were surrounded from all sides.
References to videos:
1. A fellow of DCP grabs a poster from Kateryna Gorchynska and pushes Olena Prytula
http://video.detector.media/show/no_comment/1141-video_ohorona_napala_na_olenu_pritulu_pid_chas_vistupu_ianukovicha%21_03.09.2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpI8eLX7Ljc&feature=player_embedded
2. A fellow of DCP grabs a poster from Aleksandr Argat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj6IWCTbo6c&feature=player_embedded
3. They remove a poster from Tetiana Veremchuk
On the same day without taking into consideration all video evidence, The State Protection Department made a statement that unknown individuals prevented journalists' protest during the World Newspaper Forum.
Taking into account all these facts, we are writing to WAN-IFRA with the request to protect freedom of speech and demand Ukrainian authorities to take actions to find and punish the offenders. We also ask you to take this issue under your personal control.
We are thankful to WAN-IFRA for support of freedom of speech in Ukraine, because one of the goals of having the World Congress in Ukraine was to express solidarity with the local independent press that every day suffers from such a big pressure.
Sincerely,
Journalist movement Stop Censorship!
September, 4, 2012, Kyiv
Reference. Civil movement Stop Censorship!
Civil movement Stop Censorship! was founded on May, 21, 2010. The movement is informal journalist association, created as a response to pressures on freedom of speech in Ukraine.
This initiative of Ukrainian journalists and Media NGOs has aim to protect freedom of speech, prevent establishing of censorship in Ukraine, to make impossible causing obstruction to professional activities of journalists and violation of professional standards in covering socio political issue.
Civil movement Stop Censorship! doesn't support any political force and isn't funded by political parties.
To learn more or join civil movement Stop Censorship! you can at /news/article/53128/2010-05-22-pripiniti-tisk-na-zhurnalistiv-ne-dopustiti-represii/
The blog of civil movement Stop Censorship!: http://stopcensorship.wordpress.com and at Twitter: http://twitter.com/Stopcensorship
