The National Police and the Security Service of Ukraine have launched separate investigations into incidents of pressure on journalists. The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, condemned the surveillance of journalists at Bihus.Info, a media outlet that regularly investigates corruption in Ukraine.
"The security service has started an investigation and will find out all the circumstances. Any pressure on journalists is unacceptable," Zelenskyy said in an address on Wednesday. Earlier on Wednesday, Zelensky met with the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Vasyl Malyuk, to discuss this issue.
Zelensky's conviction came two days after a video appeared on the Internet, in which operators and some other members of the Bihus.Info team order various types of illegal drugs by phone, and then use them during a New Year's party in the suburbs of Kyiv. Head of Bihus. Info Denys Bigus said that the employees caught on video using drugs were fired for violating the company's values. "Of course, the wiretapping and surveillance were illegal. This does not justify what we saw on the video, namely the use of prohibited substances by several of our colleagues," Bigus said in a video message.
Bigus said that he later found out that his team was allegedly being monitored by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies for about a year. Exact details about the surveillance and its perpetrators are unknown.
"This does not look like revenge for one person, but as an attempt to put pressure on journalists who systematically expose the corruption of the current and previous governments," Bigus said. "But I don't understand how this can discredit our work for the sake of Ukraine."
The Bihus.Info video was published a day after unknown persons tried to intimidate another journalist, Yuriy Nikolov, who is known for investigating corruption in the defense sector of Ukraine. Nikolov claimed that people in military uniforms appeared at his door shouting, calling him a "trickster" and scaring his mother.
The Ukrainian media movement "Mediarukh" condemned the incidents as signs of systemic pressure on journalists and called on Zelenskyi to react.
The National Police of Ukraine and the Security Service of Ukraine have launched separate investigations into both incidents.
"Transparent and unimpeded work of independent and professional mass media is an important condition for the development of Ukraine as a democratic state. Such facts of surveillance must be given a legal assessment, regardless of whether the facts of a possible violation of the legislation related to the circulation of narcotic substances were discovered in the materials of the covert filming," the SBU said in a statement.
