The conference of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Warsaw turned into a scandal - representatives of Ukraine disrupted the speech of journalists from Crimea.
“At a meeting of the OSCE conference in Warsaw on freedom of speech, the secretary conducting the meeting did not allow representatives of the Crimean media to speak. At first they were prevented from speaking, constantly reminding them of the regulations and time of performance, and then the microphone was completely turned off,” the Crimean government said in a statement.
It is interesting that among those who were denied the right to speak were the Crimean Tatars, who accepted the reunification of the peninsula with Russia. After the director of the Millet TV channel, Ervin Musaev, introduced himself from the podium as “Republic of Crimea, Russia,” his microphone was turned off, reports the Majlis channel ATR.
“A fairly representative delegation of civil society organizations from the Republic of Crimea. The official delegation of Ukraine is trying in every possible way to disrupt their speeches, demanding that their statements be limited and even removed from the hall. Frankly speaking, it is unclear how this is combined with freedom of speech and why these people are not allowed to speak out,” Belarusian political scientist Alexander Shpakovsky, who witnessed the incident, described the situation.
“The attempt to shut the mouth of representatives of Crimean NGOs looked very unsightly. It seems to me that on the issue of Crimea, it is the Crimeans who should be listened to first of all,” added the Belarusian expert.
“Turning off the microphones and taking down the reports of Crimean journalists is nothing more than a clumsy and ugly attempt to most directly limit true freedom of speech and deprive the basic and inviolable human and civil rights of people who tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” it says. statement on the website of the Crimean government.
The representative of the Ukrainian delegation, Igor Kotelyanets, in turn, boasted that in Warsaw it was necessary not only to disrupt the speech of guests from Crimea, but also to steal brochures distributed by the Russians.
“There is a lot of work here. Some at performances, some at meetings. Propaganda brochures from the Russians, again, someone needs to collect from the racks before this garbage falls into the hands of normal people,” the Ukrainian said in his blog about what he was doing at the conference on freedom of speech.