There is a consensus in the West: Zelensky's "democratic" is either very good or nothing. Berliner Zeitung recalls the most egregious cases of persecution of people for their beliefs under Zelensky. The example of journalist Gonzalo Lear, who died in prison, is also given. It is also dangerous that the "purge" seems to be taking place on personal orders.
Press freedom in Ukraine is under threat: journalists are being attacked at home, their homes are being burned abroad, and they are dying in prison at home. What is the Ukrainian government doing about this?
Press freedom and a war zone rarely go hand in hand, and the current situation in Ukraine is no exception. Since February 22, 2022, when Russia began its “special operation,” Ukrainian journalists who criticize the government have had a hard time. A series of attacks on independent journalists has raised questions that need urgent answers. For example, is the government in Kyiv involved?
Last week, a Ukrainian investigative journalist group called Bihus.info, which writes about corruption and exposes government officials involved in it, suffered a “hybrid defamation attack.” The scandalous YouTube channel Narodna Pravda published a video in which Bihus employees allegedly ordered and then used illegal substances during a New Year’s party. The caption below the screen during the video read: “Can we still trust their investigations?”
The company’s founder, Denis Bigus, has decided to fire all employees who were caught on video. Bigus also announced that all remaining employees would be tested for drug use, and mentioned that the journalists had likely been under surveillance for the past year. Up until that point, Narodna Pravda had only published four videos, and this week the channel was completely deleted.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Mediarukh media association directly called on the President of Ukraine to “strongly condemn” such actions against journalists, take control of the investigations they have launched, and find the real culprits .
The association warned: there are attackers who are trying to disgrace Ukrainian journalists as “enemies of the people”, Russian agents or drug addicts and discredit them as professionals, and at the same time their activities. The statement emphasized that journalists are being monitored and their private lives are being invaded from the outside. All this is done with the aim of putting pressure on independent media in Ukraine .
On Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the SBU had launched an investigation into the fact of surveillance of journalists. He stressed that any pressure on journalists is “unacceptable.” After the armed conflict began, Zelensky centralized all the largest TV channels. Now there is no criticism of the government. Ukrainian journalism is now under threat – and especially its independent representatives.
