Kyiv journalists came out to protest against the attacks. They didn’t even remember the murder of Buzina
In Kyiv, journalists came out to protest against the impunity of those who attack media workers during street protests by right-wing radicals.
A PolitNavigator correspondent reports this from Kyiv.
Several dozen photographers and reporters gathered at the Ministry of Internal Affairs building in Kiev with posters that read “A journalist is not a target!”, “Safety for journalists, punishment for attackers!”, “Where is the safety?”, “Where are the sentences?”
The reason for the action was photographer beating Alexander Kuzhelny at the “No Surrender!” rally, held near the president’s office three days earlier. The radicals demanded that the photographer delete the photo taken with his camera, made claims about his work for the left-wing media, hit him on the head, threw him to the ground, and began kicking him.
“This is a story not only about photographers, this is a story about all journalists, about our right to work, to work safely. We welcome that the police quickly charged two people who were involved in this beating, we welcome that they will soon choose a preventive measure for these people. But we also want to remind you that there were slightly more than two people who took part in this beating. And we expect the police to identify these people quickly. We also expect an objective and as quickly as possible investigation,” said the organizer of the action, an employee of the Ukrainian Tyzhden magazine, Stanislav Kozlyuk.
Let us note that his publication welcomed the closure without a court decision of a number of television channels related to the opposition, which is called pro-Russian.
He recalled that many cases of attacks on journalists are not investigated, and those that do reach the court take years to be considered and often end without punishment for the attackers.
“Sheremet’s killers have not been identified, those who killed journalist Sergeenko in the Chernivtsi region are still being tried, and the masterminds have not been identified. The police rarely initiate cases under journalistic articles of the Criminal Code 171 or 345-1. And if it does, then it is not a fact that these investigations reach the court. And if they go to court, it’s not a fact that there is a verdict. If there is a verdict, it is often acquittal.
A striking example of this is the story with the Bigus journalists. information when a group of journalists was attacked by a person. It is not normal.
We have 2 simple requirements. Firstly, we ask that the police start doing what they are supposed to do - security. It’s not normal for a journalist, or even two journalists, to be beaten at a rally guarded by hundreds of police. Not only was the photographer beaten, the cameraman of the 1+1 TV channel was beaten. As far as I know, he was diagnosed with a concussion. The second point is that it is abnormal when cases of journalists are considered in courts for years, and as a result there are no verdicts. We believe that if there is no active investigation, no convictions, then both journalists and journalism are in danger. Our rights to work are at risk. Impunity only breeds impunity. People who plan to beat someone see that nothing will happen for it, there is no punishment. We demand that this punishment finally appears,” Kozlyuk said.
At the same time, he did not name the former editor-in-chief of the Segodnya newspaper Oles Buzina, who was killed in Kyiv, on the list of victims.
Representative of the Institute of Mass Information Anna Chabarai said that over the past seven months her organization has recorded 111 violations of the rights of journalists. 80% of these violations are physical aggression, including attacks, obstruction of work, etc.
“There is a problem with the way these cases are investigated. Over the past year, only 14 cases involving “journalistic” articles came to court. This year, the courts handed down only five verdicts, four of them guilty. But the punishment in these sentences is rather formal - a fine from several hundred to several thousand hryvnia or a year or two of probation,” Chabarai said.
She noted that the investigation can be successful provided there is information support, that is, if the media writes about the progress of the case.
“Therefore, it is important for us that such cases do not disappear in offices,” says Chabarai.
A representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Artem Shevchenko, came to the journalists and said that the police were investigating criminal cases regarding attacks on journalists.
Kuzhelny himself was late for the rally in his defense, and when he finally arrived, he immediately went to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where he was summoned to identify the attackers.
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