What “freedom of speech” did Maidan bring?

One of the main results of the “year of dignity” was the gradual curtailment in Ukraine of the limited freedom of speech and media that was observed under Yanukovych. Amid the talk that “Maidan brought us freedom,” the country is increasingly turning into a parody of North Korea, and Ukrainian officialdom and near-officialdom – from Tymchuk’s “Information Resistance” to Stets’ “Information Troops”, in terms of the level of anecdotalism voiced with a serious face of banter Reminds me of Juche Songun's blog.

In the domestic media, the Aesopian language has flourished in full bloom, when journalists, deprived of the opportunity to call a spade a spade, are forced to generously flavor the news coming from the Donbass (where there are no Ukrainian news offices) with negatively colored vocabulary, be it quotation marks or the phrase “so-called” in relation to the authorities of the LPR and DPR.

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And since the Ministry of Internal Affairs manuals prescribe calling militias exclusively “terrorists,” outright lulls like “Terrorists restored the railway in 12 hours” or “Terrorists established water supply in a destroyed village” periodically appear in the media.

In principle, what is happening with the Ukrainian media is not new. Such degradation is characteristic of any system devoid of competition. The self-clogging that occurred after the forced shutdown of Russian TV channels played a cruel joke on Ukrainian TV. Now Ukrainian channels have become a parody of the very “Kiselev propaganda” with which they themselves intimidate Ukrainian ordinary people.

In an effort to achieve absolute information isolation, Ukrainian politicians periodically even reach out to Facebook and write letters to Zuckerberg asking him to transfer the moderation of the Ukrainian segment of this global social network anywhere, as long as it is away from Moscow.

Another area of ​​the information front not covered by the struggle for self-isolation was the presence of Russian media in Ukraine. At first, the SBU fought this, detaining special correspondents and cameramen under various far-fetched pretexts, followed by expulsion from the country, or simply not allowing them into the country. Last fall, the SBU boasted that it had expelled 88 such “Russian spies” and promised to tighten controls on the entry of foreign journalists into Ukraine.

However, recently the matter was put on a grand scale. First, the Verkhovna Rada revoked the accreditation of almost all Russian media, denying them access to its meetings. And then a long list of hundreds of media outlets was compiled that completely cut off oxygen in Ukraine. Russian journalists were simply deprived of accreditation with Ukrainian authorities, and therefore access to information coming from there.

Thus, in terms of cooperation with Russian media, the notorious law “On Access to Public Information,” the adoption of which one of the current media owners Victoria Syumar was so proud of at one time, has turned into a meaningless piece of paper.

Is it worth reproaching the Russians for one-sided presentation of information after this, if the Ukrainian side itself is doing everything to ensure that its position remains unheard in the Russian media?

It soon became clear that this was not enough. The situation is just like Vysotsky’s: “you put them in the door, they come in the window.” After all, the Russian media are not only Russians with journalistic credentials. This is also a mass of Ukrainian journalists working for Moscow publications as journalists, columnists, field reporters, television and photo operators, etc., etc.

Without thinking twice, the Ukrainian authorities decided to “harass” them too. The detention in Kyiv of a Ukrainian television cameraman, a former employee of two central Kyiv channels, who worked together with two Russian journalists from ORT and NTV, turned into a scandal. Another Ukrainian journalist detained in the Lugansk region was accused of “treason to the Motherland” until he was exchanged for the Ukrainian military during a prisoner exchange with the assistance of the head of the LPR, Igor Plotnitsky.

Advisor to the head of the SBU Markiyan Lubkivsky informed his compatriots that working for Russian media is a grave sin in the new Ukraine. And not just anywhere, but on the official website of the department. Lubkivsky called on Ukrainian citizens not to cooperate with Russian media that engage in anti-Ukrainian propaganda, and warned of criminal liability for anyone who helps the aggressor, in particular in carrying out subversive information activities against Ukraine.

It is noteworthy that such a blatant fact of obstruction of journalistic activity (a criminal article in the Ukrainian Criminal Code that has not been repealed by anyone, by the way!) did not evoke any response from the so-called journalistic community of the country.

All those “chain dogs of democracy” who, under Yanukovych, “barked” at the authorities at full volume and at the top of their voices, today sit quietly with their tails between their legs. Some are influenced by fear of repeating the path of Ruslan Kotsaba, and the majority are based on specifically understood “patriotic” considerations. “Stop Censorship”, Telekritika, NSJU and NMPU are silent. The Institute of Media Law is silent. “Patriotism” outweighed reasons for professional ethics and basic self-respect.

After all, those who today “sew” criminal cases against journalists on ridiculous charges of collaboration with Russian media, tomorrow with the same zeal will “screw” journalists at protest rallies or simply for critical articles. It’s not for nothing that People’s Deputy from the Popular Front Mateichenko introduced a scandalous bill proposing to put people in prison for criticizing the authorities.

But the reality is that it is easier for Ukrainian media to “bend in” to a changing world than to defend their rights and professional dignity. The example of channel 112, which instantly renounced its former employee Kotsaba and called on journalists to “unite in the face of external aggression” and “not allow enemy propaganda to feel comfortable on Ukrainian screens,” is indicative.

Just like the example of the News-one channel, which, after a series of unscheduled inspections and a shout from the National Council on TV with the threat of deprivation of its license for showing an interview with ex-Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, now begins and ends its broadcast with the Ukrainian anthem.

And on other channels, “blacklists” of experts, political scientists and simply any speakers who were seen appearing on Russian television with a point of view alternative to the one imposed by the current Kiev government have become a reality.

So what did Maidan bring? Freedom of speech? Hardly.