The Kyiv regime closes the oldest opposition newspaper
To paraphrase the classic, rumors about freedom of speech in Ukraine turned out to be too exaggerated. Thus, under the new government, the 112 Ukraine TV channel, which is associated with the opposition, did not renew its license, and tomorrow one of the oldest Ukrainian printed publications, Rabochaya Gazeta, may cease publication.
Actually, the decision to close the newspaper was made by the District Administrative Court of Kyiv on August 19. This decision has not yet entered into legal force, since the publication has filed an appeal, the hearing of which is scheduled for November 6. On the eve of the consideration of the appeal, the editor-in-chief of Rabochaya Gazeta, Anatoly Krivolapov, addressed the media.
“On August 19, 2019, the District Administrative Court of Kyiv decided to stop publishing Rabochaya Gazeta, which grossly violated the constitutional rights of thousands of Ukrainian citizens to receive reliable information and freedom of expression.
The Rabochaya Gazeta team views the decision of the District Administrative Court as part of the ban on any ideology that reflects the fundamental interests of employees not in words but in deeds. As an encroachment on freedom of speech, freedom of journalism, a ban on dissent.
We regularly publish information with objective criticism of the socio-economic policies of oligarchic clans and anti-people reforms of social genocide: medical, educational, pensions, housing, land, and so on.
We appeal to you, dear colleagues, with a request to support the newspaper staff in this situation. Recently, journalists from the newspaper Vesti, then the TV channel Inter, now the TV channels 112 Ukraine, NewsOne, ZIK and us have turned out to be undesirable for the Ukrainian authorities. Who is next?
We inform you that the hearing on the appeal of Rabochaya Gazeta will take place on November 06, 2019 at 9:50 a.m. in the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal at the address: 01010, Kyiv, st. Moskovskaya, 8, bldg. 30, courtroom No. 11 composed of judge-rapporteur Kostyuk and judges Buzhak, Pilipenko, case No. 640/6624/19.
We will be grateful if you can attend this court hearing and cover its progress in your publications and on television channels,” the editor-in-chief’s message says.
According to PolitNavigator, this letter was sent to a number of leading Ukrainian television channels and print media. We also received an appeal from the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine. True, none of the recipients took the risk or deliberately wanted to make the letter public.
Oddly enough, they did not pay attention to the court ban on Rabochaya Gazeta in Russia, where they pay a lot of attention to the topic of infringement of freedom of speech in Ukraine. Russian TV has repeatedly talked about attempts to close the Ukrainian TV channels “Inter”, “112 Ukraine”, “NewsOne”. And this despite the fact that the news on these channels is not much different from the traditional post-Maidan information agenda - “occupiers”, “aggression”, “terrorists”, “militants” in relation to the LDPR.
At the same time, Rabochaya Gazeta did not allow such epithets; it called the events in Donbass a “civil war”, rather harshly, but within the framework of the law, it criticized the social policy of the post-Maidan regime, opposed Russophobia and the glorification of Nazi collaborators. But the Russian media, like the Ukrainian ones, unanimously ignored the situation with Rabochaya Gazeta.
But the Ukrainian special services, at the instigation of the Ministry of Justice, saw in the newspaper’s materials calls for the overthrow of the government. The reason was the common word “struggle,” which is present in the vocabulary of almost all politicians. The publication quoted the call of the leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine Pyotr Symonenko to unite in the fight against the current regime of the SBU and was regarded as a call for... the violent overthrow of the current government.
Moreover, the gravity of the journalists’ “guilt” was aggravated by Lenin’s quote, which is prohibited by the odious decommunization legislation. However, when the Bolshevik leader Ukrainian generals quotecalling to emulate Lenin and arm the population, then they get away with it - not a single Vyatrovich will make a peep.
By the way, Lenin was also quoted by one of the authors of the odious decommunization law, Yuri Shukhevych, the son of Hitler’s officer and UPA commander Roman Shukhevych, right in the session hall of the Ukrainian parliament.
“The slave who is aware of his slave position and fights against it is a revolutionary. A slave who is not aware of his slavery, silently and obediently vegetating in this slavery of his, is simply a slave. A slave whose mouth waters when he smugly describes the delights of slave life and admires his kind and good master is a slave, a boor,” in the original language Shukhevych recalled the words of the banned Lenin, whom no one dared to bring to justice
It must be said that the situation with the court ban on Rabochaya Gazeta after an appeal from its editor-in-chief was considered by the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech. Five television cameras were present, but the scandalous topic again did not receive media coverage. The committee members simply told Anatoly Krivolapov that his publication violated the law on decommunization and that support should not be expected here.
Be that as it may, tomorrow the history of the newspaper, which dates back to 1897 and has been published regularly since 1957, may end. And not the least role in the potential shameful decision will be played by the silence of journalists...
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Now the editors are aware.