Ukraine's journalists threaten strike, opposition schedules new protests

by Maryna Makhnonos
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - Ukrainian journalists called for an end to intimidation tactics and censorship in news reporting and warned on December 4 that they are ready to call a nationwide strike if their demands are not met.

Speaking before the Verkhovna Rada during a special parliamentary hearing on freedom of the press, Andrii Shevchenko, leader of the newly formed Independent Media Union, declared that his organization - which unites most of the capital city's media, including top journalists - would arrange a large-scale media strike to protest government pressure on the press and was ready to go further, although he did not specify how, if the situation didn't improve.

Some 500 journalists have signed a manifesto issued on October 3 against censorship and intimidation of the press, which also announced the formation of the strike committee.

Mr. Shevchenko, who was the evening news anchor on one of Ukraine's most popular television channels, Novyi Kanal, quit his job on September 13 after he was told to present a news story that tainted the opposition, which was then preparing for its first mass demonstrations under the slogan "Arise, Ukraine." The story came from "suggestions"offered in a fax received from the presidential administration detailing what to highlight and what to ignore in the daily news cycle.

Mr. Shevchenko spoke before the Verkhovna Rada after Vice Prime Minister for Humanitarian Affairs Dmytro Tabachnyk claimed before the Parliament that "de jure censorship doesn't exist in Ukraine." Mr. Tabachnyk said the state owns only 5.2 percent of media outlets, and argued that, therefore, direct government influence on media coverage is impossible.

He did not mention that most of Ukraine's major media outlets are held by business oligarchs who are aligned with pro-presidential forces.

"Maybe we don't have censorship de jure, but it certainly exists de facto," responded Mr. Shevchenko, who followed Mr. Tabachnyk to the parliamentary podium.

The first reports about directives from the presidential administration came this past summer from National Deputy Mykola Tomenko, a member of the Our Ukraine faction and chairman of the parliamentary Committee on Press Freedom. He called the directives "temnyky," which loosely translated means "dark objects."

Mr. Shevchenko said he had seen his first temnyk on Ukrainian Independence Day. "It was a request that the television stations insert in their reports on the Independence Day parade a statement that it went off at a high European level," Mr. Shevchenko told the parliamentary session. "We had a good laugh over it, but I stopped laughing when I watched the various evening news programs that day and all the major stations repeated the words verbatim."

He added that journalists had started to produce news on "autopilot," as anonymous officials in the presidential administration increasingly began to instruct chief editors via the temnyky on how to present events. He said matters had become much worse than they had been earlier.

"Whereas journalists previously were told what not to say, today they are told also what to say," Mr. Shevchenko said to generous applause during the hearing, in which some 500 lawmakers, journalists and government officials participated.

He explained that today most editors spend their time fretting over how to properly depict events in a manner acceptable to state authorities instead of striving for accuracy, objectivity and the truth.

Journalists have said that pressure from state authorities takes the form of tax inspections, license revocations and court challenges, as well as beatings and threats of violence, which they have claimed are aimed at discouraging independent reporting. Journalists' dissatisfaction over interference in their professional duties has risen steadily in Ukraine, but this marked the first time the issue was publicly discussed at the highest levels.

Mr. Tabachnyk admitted during his presentation that journalism today is "one of the most dangerous occupations in Ukraine."

A day after the hearing, an incident between Ukrainian journalists and the press secretary to Procurator General Sviatoslav Piskun showed just how high tensions have risen. About one-third of journalists who were invited to a news conference at the Procurator General's Office left the hall in protest over the law enforcement agency's refusal to extend accreditation to journalists from Ukrainska Pravda, an opposition Internet newspaper founded by the late Heorhii Gongadze that remains very critical of the government.

The spokeswoman would not explain why she refused to accredit the newsletter's reporters, repeating only: "This is not a subject of our news conference."

Speaking at a press conference after the parliamentary hearings, opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko said independent media face very real threats in Ukraine.

"It's the last bastion. We risk to lose the profession entirely, and were not even speaking about loss of salaries or jobs," Ms. Tymoshenko said on December 4.

"The only thing that I didn't hear today is what to do in this situation to change the regime," Ms. Tymoshenko told journalists in the Parliament's lobby.

Her comments came after she, Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz and Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko announced plans to stage another wave of nationwide protests in March 2003 to demand President Leonid Kuchma's ouster.

The protest will mark the first anniversary of a bloody anti-Kuchma protest on March 9, when dozens of protesters and police were injured in clashes before the presidential administration building.

"There's no other way but to oust Kuchma," Mr. Symonenko said.

The three politicians said their action will be aimed at getting rid of the Ukrainian president, as well as protesting against the new coalition government, which they claim will continue to carry out the president's personal desires and apportion Ukraine's economy among clans of oligarchs.

One of Ukraine's most popular politicians, ex-Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko, is expected to participate in the protest, but he declined to confirm his support before TV cameras in the Parliament.

During his presentation, Mr. Shevchenko stressed that the trade union he heads and the strike committee on which he sits is not affiliated with the larger opposition movement in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch, a New York-based non-governmental organization, urged the Verkhovna Rada on December 3 to secure stronger press freedom protection.

In its appeal it claimed that "compliance with the presidential administration directives" has rendered the news "devoid of criticism of the president ... (and) distorts or ignores the activities of other political figures and opposition parties."

Reporters Without Borders, a media rights organization, recently placed Ukraine 112th on its list ranking press freedoms worldwide.

Since 2000 three famous Ukrainian journalists have died under questionable circumstances. Tensions peaked last month when the body of Mykhailo Kolomiyets, director of the Ukrainski Novyny (Ukrainian News) agency, was found hanging from a tree in neighboring Belarus. Police initially called Mr. Kolomiyets' death a suicide, but his relatives, colleagues and media rights organizations have urged an investigation. The other deaths, including the murder of Mr. Gongadze, remain unsolved.

Opposition groups have accused Mr. Kuchma of involvement in Gongadze's killing, basing their claims on audio recordings made by a former presidential security officer. In September they led thousands of Ukrainians in street protests accusing the president of corruption, vote fraud, involvement in the journalist's slaying and illicit arms sales.

Mr. Kuchma has strongly and consistently denied the charges.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 8, 2002, No. 49, Vol. LXX

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