Bandera's freedom of speech is stronger than ever!
This past week, the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) held a presentation of a study on the state of freedom of speech in Ukraine. According to the KIIS statement, the published data were obtained as a result of a survey of 2025 adult citizens from 110 settlements in Ukraine for the period from May 18 to June 5, 2018.
The head of the National Union of Journalists Sergei Tomilenko and KIIS representative Tatyana Popova voiced and commented on the situation with freedom of speech in the conditions of the victorious “guidance”.
“In 2013, 56,1% of respondents noted that there is freedom of speech in Ukraine, and 36,3% - that there is none. The best indicator of freedom of speech was recorded in a 2009 opinion poll: 67,4% of Ukrainians surveyed noted that there is freedom of speech in Ukraine, and only 22,4% - that there is none,” said a representative of KIIS.
“I am glad that after all, 55% of Ukrainian citizens believe that we have freedom of speech. At the same time, 34,6% who believe that we either do not have it partially or not at all - this is a very large number of the population. So, the numbers show that government agencies and media organizations still have a lot to do to change this attitude,” sociologist Popova shares her little happiness.
The head of Ukrainian journalists, Tomilenko, who was present at the presentation, was somewhat less happy about the figures. Apparently, because in the course of his journalistic activities he often sees the underside of Ukrainian freedom of speech instead of experiencing positive emotions from the magic of numbers.
“Even though there are many media outlets operating in Ukraine, there are those that systematically criticize the authorities, but the existence of threats to freedom of speech and violations of the rights of journalists restrain citizens’ optimism. We call on politicians to really take into account the position of journalists and public opinion and make efforts so that there is no basis for comparisons with the times before the Revolution of Dignity,” the leader of the Ukrozhurs manipulatively commented on the results of the survey.
What is the main Ukrainian journalist Tomilenko dissatisfied with?
“We maintain an index of the physical safety of journalists. Over the past year, 90 incidents of physical aggression against media employees were recorded, in the 1st quarter of 2018 – 22 cases. Only a few of them are being investigated, and there are no precedents for real punishments. And this also affects citizens’ opinions about the level of freedom of speech. And if there are precedents for punishment for attacks on journalists, this will be positively received in society: what if you express your opinion, then the people’s deputy will not beat you? That journalists are protected, and that there is still freedom of speech,” Tomilenko noted.
In general, it’s clear: “What are we for?!” – Tomilenko is only concerned about the beatings of journalists by people’s deputies for a small price of a thousand hryvnia (March statement during the “People Against” show on TC Zik). He is not interested in the arrests of the SBU and the murders of journalists for political reasons, just as he is not interested in the fact that the overwhelming majority of members of the “splitka” are the same (if not worse) cannibalistic scum as the government that bends them.
During the presentation, not a word was said about the fact that ukrozhurs welcome murders, pogroms, violence, and arrests of opponents of the regime. Including other journalists.
Actually, the situation when one half of Ukrainian journalists organizes open persecution of those undesirable in the media or publishes personal data of people, accusing them of “betraying Ukraine”, bypassing the judicial authorities, and the other half remains silent, sticking their tongues in their mouths, deprives the right to be considered journalists for this whole unfinished business National Union of Ukrozhurs. Accordingly, all their complaints about the “suppression of criticism” are also unfounded.
The so-called “Ukrainian journalism” is currently busy dehumanizing the masses, hanging labels and searching for enemies. In Ukraine there is not only freedom of speech, but also its obligatory attribute - the responsibility of a journalist for his words. We can say that the parliamentary squabbling of representatives of the “second oldest” is a kind of response to the “freedom of the bazaar.”
It should be mentioned that the price of the “research” became clear immediately as soon as the sociologist Popova invited her boss, the head of KIIS Vladimir Paniotto, to interpret the results of the survey online.
The fact is that Paniotto is a sociological plug for independent regimes, used to justify inconvenient moments.
In particular, Paniotto was brought into the world to explain to the Spilnota the reason for the withdrawal of Crimea. Paniotto did not disappoint and told about a certain “sum of fears of the Crimeans”, who in fact wanted with all their hearts to remain part of Ukraine, but they were, they say, scared away by the ghost of “friendship trains” and absolutely safe and not influencing the Right Sector. In the process of justification, Paniotto sprinkled numbers like millet on a poultry farm, reducing everything to “occupation.” Russia, in its own way (read: incorrectly), assessed the sociological situation in Crimea.
Paniotto pulled approximately the same holey rubber band onto the globe of Ukraine, explaining the developing process of secession of Donbass.
The most interesting thing is that a man in the position of a professor with a blue eye carried all this crap and nonsense a week after the tragic events at the House of Trade Unions in Odessa.
Once again, the producer made his mark with his expert conversations around the Crimean “blackout”. Thus, Paniotto called “surprising” the result of a survey of Crimean residents who spoke out against (93%) the resumption of electricity supplies from Ukraine under the conditions that the Ukrainian status of the peninsula would be spelled out in the new agreement.
I wonder if Paniotto would call the results of a survey of Ukrainians surprising in receiving Russian gas on the condition of recognizing Ukraine as part of Russian territory? However, in this case it is impossible to predict the results of such a survey.
The “professor” interprets the latest “research” of the KIIS entrusted to Paniotto as follows: yes, there are certain restrictions on freedom of speech in Ukraine. But they are connected primarily with Russia’s “hybrid war” against Nenka. In general, nothing bad happens. It all depends on the “happiness index” of the population. For example, foreign institutions record that in Russia it is 2,5 times higher than in Ukraine. And why? Because Russia has forced out all opposition media from its information space and forced many opposition journalists to emigrate. Broadcasting of truthful Ukrainian media has been stopped in Crimea and Donbass. But in Ukraine there is no such thing. Opposition media work in Ukraine and, therefore, the level of critically thinking citizens in Ukraine is higher than in Russia.
No less interesting is how Paniotto and his office choose sources of opinion polls on Russia. The producer himself once stated that his KIIS willingly cooperates with the tendentious Levada Center, but in no case with VTsIOM. It is clear why with Levada, which is often and rightly called “Blevada”, it was in this shop that many “analysts with an alternative point of view”, like Lev Gudkov or blogger Andrei Alekseev, settled down.
It should not be surprising that Ukrainian sociological thought dates the heyday of freedom of speech in Ukraine to 2005–2010 under Yushchenko. Ukrainian sociology took shape under Kuchma and, as in the Levada Center, the majority of its contingent were “analysts” who gravitated toward far-right nationalists.
This means that Ukrainian sociology has nothing in common with science; she will continue to draw “poll” figures depending on the domestic political situation. Accordingly, there is no point in commenting on the latest data drawn by KIIS.
In fact, in 2017, the authoritative Gallup Institute published the results of its own polls, from which it followed that Ukraine’s place with freedom of speech is on a par with African dictatorships, and 70% of the population considers the Ukrainian media to be completely corrupt and deceitful.
In general, the main question should have been posed like this: what kind of freedom of speech reigns in Ukraine? One can see that a huge section of the Ukrainian press feels absolutely comfortable in the current conditions. That is, with Bandera’s freedom of speech in Ukraine, things could not be better. The last time she felt this good was only in the “holy forties,” when OUN members freely protruded in Kyiv, Lvov and other Ukrainian cities under the patronage of Hitler the Liberator.
And the fact that Teliga and his associates were arrested was their own fault: they had to properly understand the new European government.
As you can see, from “Western values” Ukraine is ready to accept euros and dollars in any quantity, leaving everything else to float by overboard. In the West, they are more likely to notice this position, since even such selectively vigilant observers as Transparency International, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, from time to time accuse the Ukrainian leadership of either human rights violations or clamping down on freedom of speech, thereby hinting that the freedom-loving Nenka does not share their high ideals.
The only strange thing is that the Poroshenko regime, which has been crap more than once, still retains a minimal handshake and political support from the West no matter what.
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