Ukrainian delegates staged a sabbath at the OSCE during a speech by a Crimean journalist
Representatives of Ukraine threw a tantrum during the speech of the chairman of the Crimean branch of the Union of Journalists of Russia Andrei Trofimov at a conference on freedom of speech under the auspices of the OSCE in Warsaw.
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Trofimov himself told about this in a commentary to PolitNavigator. According to him, in his speech he spoke about the realities of journalists’ work in Crimea, and also invited colleagues from foreign media to visit the peninsula.
“I noted that we do not accept hate speech, deeply condemn and reject any attempts by the Ukrainian side to defame the results of the referendum, we are absolutely open to dialogue and invite foreign delegations and journalists to Crimea, regardless of what media they work for, so that they can receive information about what is really happening in Crimea, that we are opponents of isolation and attempts to impose it on us.
I talked about how the media community is developing, that in the Union of Journalists of Russia, in the Crimean regional branch and in the city of Sevastopol there are over 500 journalists, on the territory of the republic there are 435 actively working media outlets published in all three state languages in Crimea - Ukrainian, Russian and Crimean Tatar, that there is an open intercultural dialogue, that we have national broadcasting studios and the deepest mistake of our partners is to violate the rights of Crimeans by restricting their travel outside the Crimea, otherwise the meaning of the concepts of “democracy” and “freedom of speech,” Trofimov noted.
According to his information, these words caused an aggressive reaction from members of the Ukrainian delegation.
“The Ukrainian delegation took my speech extremely negatively - they made noise, knocked, cursed, said that I was a “Kremlin agent”, “an illegitimate person who semi-legally entered the site”, that “Crimea is an occupied territory” and they asked for everyone’s help the international community to throw chains on the raging “Russian bear”. This position contradicts the basic principles of democracy and freedom of speech,” said the head of the Crimean branch of the SJR.
He also emphasized that the actions of his Ukrainian colleagues did not prevent him from delivering a letter from Crimean journalists to the OSCE Permanent Representative on Freedom of the Media Duna Mijatović and expressed hope of meeting with her within the framework of the “Formula of Trust” journalistic forum, which will take place next week in Dagomys.
“Ms. Mijatović was going to be at this meeting. I think we will work with her on what kind of response we will receive to our letter,” Trofimov said.
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