Ukraine
2018
Hundreds of journalists jailed globally becomes the new normal
For the third year in a row, 251 or more journalists are jailed around the world, suggesting the authoritarian approach to critical news coverage is more than a temporary spike. China, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia imprisoned more journalists than last year, and Turkey remained the world’s worst jailer. A CPJ special report by Elana Beiser
Ukraine court grants prosecutors access to investigative reporter’s phone records
New York, September 4, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned a Ukrainian court’s decision to grant the country’s prosecutor general’s office permission to access the phone records of Natalie Sedletska, a reporter, editor, and television presenter for Schemes, an investigative journalism project of the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian Service.
Ukrainian reporter held by Moscow-backed separatists forced to confess in Russia state TV interview
New York, August 22, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Russian state-run TV channel Rossiya 24’s broadcast of an interview with Stanislav Aseyev, a Ukrainian reporter held for more than a year by Russia-backed separatists, in which he falsely confessed to spying for Ukraine. CPJ also reiterates its call for Aseyev’s immediate release.
‘I don’t feel safe now’: Journalists in Ukraine anxious after Babchenko operation
In the week since the Ukrainian security service, the SBU, staged the assassination of Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, little if any dust stirred up by the elaborate and controversial operation–ostensibly carried out to foil a Russian plot to kill him–has settled.
The many questions about Arkady Babchenko’s staged murder in Ukraine
Minutes after news broke that prominent Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko had been murdered in Ukraine, social media exploded with messages mourning the loss of a bright, sometimes-too-outspoken journalist. Friends and colleagues wrote moving obituaries, and groups including CPJ condemned the killing. Impromptu memorials in both Kiev and Moscow sprouted, as they all too often do,…
UPDATE: Russian journalist Babchenko’s assassination was staged
New York, May 30, 2018– Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, who had been reported shot and killed in the Ukrainian capital yesterday, has appeared alive at a televised news conference in Kiev. Vasily Gritsak, head of the Ukrainian Security Service, said the agency faked Babchenko’s death to catch those who were trying to kill him. “We…
Ukraine extends ban on Russian news agencies, journalists
New York, May 24, 2018–Ukrainian authorities today published a presidential decree that extends for three years sanctions imposed in 2017 against Russian state-funded news outlets and their journalists, as well as other foreign entities and individuals, and added the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti-Ukraine to the sanctions list, according to media reports.
Ukraine authorities search Russian news agency, detain director
New York, May 15, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed concern over the Ukraine Security Service’s (SBU) search of the Kiev office of the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti and detention of the office director, Kirill Vyshynsky.
In Ukraine, journalists harassed, 1 attacked while filming investigative report
Vladislav Pleshakov, a journalist from the privately owned television channel 1+1, was assaulted in an upscale neighborhood near Kiev on April 21, 2018, while filming for an investigative report about real estate allegedly owned by Ukraine’s finance minister, Oleksandr Danyliuk, according to the Kiev-based media monitoring organization Detector Media, which cites 1+1’s press service.