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Human rights in Ukraine 2009 – 2010. 8. The Freedom of Expression

23.02.2011   

1

1. Overview

After 2004 the pressure on mass media and journalists from the authorities reduced considerably. It provided substantial improvement of mass media freedom implementation and respect journalists rights. From 2006 the pressure started to grow, although the level of freedom of expression remained much higher than prior 2004.

In 2006-2009 the situation did not change much. In mass media variety of opinions was observed and a lot of critique concerning current authorities was made public, although several censorship cases were made pubic either. The main problems of the period were the following:

  • the so-called “jeans” i.e. paid, ordered material in mass media not defined as advertisement;

  • freedom of expression limitation in order to protect public morality;

  • lack of transparency concerning the issue of mass media property, that did not allow to provide proper pluralism of mass-media;

  • increase of administrative pressure on journalists from mass media owners; numerous dismissals, “envelope” salary, unofficial employment for the journalists and numerous violations of labor legislation concerning journalists applied by mass media owners in order to carry out controlled editorial policy, in particular on issues of political life.

Independence from the authorities did not become the guarantee of independence for mass media. There was still lack of editorial policy separation from mass media owners, it made mass media too dependent on the desires of its owners, who kept controlling the editorial policy more and more being most of them politicians themselves.

In that period the legislation on freedom of expression practically did not change. In particular, freedom of speech obtained by political methods was not secured in the legislation.

In 2010 the situation started to change rather radically in the direction of freedom of expression limitations. It was made applying various mechanisms.

In March, 2010 the Director General of National TV Company of Ukraine was replaced. Yegor Benkendorf became the new director (before he had worked on pro-authorities channel “Inter”), that provided controllability over nation-wide TV channel: the content and orientation of the news and political programs changed at once and the network of broadcasting was remodeled rather considerably.

On the same months the Parliament elected Valeriy Khoroshkovsky the Head of State Security Service, being him the major stock-holder of U.A.Inter Media Group Limited2. One of the first issues Khoroshkovsky did in office was opening a criminal file concerning licensing for broadcasting by the National Council in February 2010. The SSS started active investigation, tender files and other materials of the National Council were withdrawn3, although before the General Prosecutor’s Office had studied the case and denied opening a criminal file. As a result in October 2010 the General Prosecutor’s Office also opened a criminal file against non defined officials of the National Council.4

Nevertheless it seems that such openings and closings of files indicate to current National Council members what may happen: current process looks more like intimidation than a search for truth in the case.

A little earlier the Holding of Khoroshkovsky initiated law proceeding on supposed procedural violation in determining winners of a tender by National Council on TV and Radio concerning licensing for broadcasting in February 2010. As a result the Court of First Instance and later the Court of Appeal revoked the tender results. The final judgment on the cases should be made by the Higher Administrative Court at the end of January, 2011. As a result of court rulings the TBI opposition TV channel has lost almost all its licenses for broadcasting. The court ruling is rather well founded, but the selective application of the law is obvious: all the violations providing the backgrounds for such decisions were the regular National Council practice and were applied in process of issuing practically all the licenses in previous years. Besides, why should the TV channels be accountable financially for violation of the Law by the National Council? In this situation the acknowledgement of licenses valid for almost a year as non valid ones is a rather strange measure. It is even more surprising that TV channels are not guilty of infringements by the National Council, but in practice they held responsibility for its actions – incurring considerable losses.5 Taking into consideration this fact the process looked like political one aiming at reduction of broadcasting by the opposition TV-channels.

In April-June 2010 practically all the members of The National Council on Television and Radio were substituted. It became totally controlled by one political party and pro-authorities media holdings. In particular the Head of the Council became a person who had been closely related to “Inter” TV-channel.

The National Council has wide powers to influence on TV channels and radio stations: it issues or extends licenses for broadcasting, has a right to carry out inspections on legislation compliance on different issues, may apply sanctions. In fact under existing legislation when there is no accuracy in license issuing, the TV-channel or radio station existence and development depends completely on this regulating body.

Therefore the policization of its work provided a pressure instrument in order to restrict freedom of speech.

For the last several years a process of large media holdings creation, including TV channels, radio stations, printed mass media and internet recourses took place. The process was even more intense in 2008 and 2009. Usually these media holdings were a property of richest businessmen involved in politics. There was a situation, when the majority of media assets belonged exclusively to Ukrainian business. Foreign companies not invested much to the sector because of lacking transparency. Especially it is related to TV channels and radio stations. For example, at the end of 2009 a well known foreign company CME sold its share of “1+1” TV channel.

Examples of such holdings are the following:

  1. Already mentioned above U.A.Inter Media Group Limited;

  2. The holding of Viktor Pinchuk EastOne Group (http://eastonegroup.com/rus/about_company.php) including some biggest TV channels “Novyy”, ICTV, STB, M1, M2, QTV and also a newspaper “Facts and Comments”; “Ekonomika” Publishing House (Invest Paper Magazine, “DELO” (Business) newspaper, TOP-100 and others);

  3. “System Capital Management” (http://scm.com.ua/uk/index), whose owner is R. Akhmetov (including Ukraina TV channel, “Football”, the biggest nation wide newspaper “Segodnya” (Today);

  4. Media Holding “Glavred” (owner – Igor Kolomoyskiy) including ‘UNIAN” Information Agency, the newspaper “Izvestiya in Ukraine”, magazines “Glavred”, “Profile”, “Telekrytyka”, “Gazeta po Kievski”; «1+1», «2+2», «ТЕТ» «Сіті» TV channels;

  5. Ukrainian Media Holding (http://umh.com.ua/ukraine/ua/): 7 radio stations, “Focus” magazine, newspapers “Argumenty I Fakty in Ukraine”, Komsomolskaya Pravda in Ukraine” and may other printed mass media;

  6. Concern “Ukrprominvest” (http://upi.com.ua/), controlled by P. Poroshenko: “5 channel” TV channel, “Radio 5” radio station.

Therefore creation of media holdings per se made it easier to control the mass media: it is much easier to influence on 4-5 owners then on several dozens. Besides, all these owners are not only businessmen but politicians too. It makes them even more depending on new power.

From the other point of view the administrative pressure on journalists by mass media owners was intensified even more than in last years. The owners, supporting the authorities as politicians or because of fear within self-censorship started to influence greatly on mass media content, especially on TV channels.

Taking into consideration all these processes the level of freedom of speech in mass media decreased in 2010.

Many facts of failure to mention or misrepresentation of socially important information, manipulations in the news, dissemination of political pro-authority order were registered. Opposition gained less access to the broadcasting, political programs amount decreased, especially of those broadcasted directly. Besides several TV channels changed their information policy, under this pretext they started to avoid demonstration of corruption among the higher authorities or other sharp issues, some journalists were fired. Also a pressure on journalists grew stronger, they were forbidden to shoot certain reports or the materials already prepared were not allowed on air. That is why the news on nation wide TV channels became lame and not interesting, avoiding sharp plots concerning the new power activities. Also the same coverage for the same events by different TV channels was noticed, confirming informal coordination of information by them. In much more information materials the balance of opinions was not observed while covering a situation, there were less independent experts attracted to evaluate certain events. Journalists in mass started to stand against censorship applied against them.6

 

Manipulative measures of “false authority”, “labeling”, “negative transference”, probably are among the most applied in political television talk shows. The same characters wander from one show to another – both politicians and experts –by definition they are incapable to be experts on all the issued considered. Per se it means that instead of essential conversation on burning issue there would be only a broadcast of biased “ready-mades”. Such speakers, usually, in contrast to those who pretend on expert opinions, in practice never leave the studio, bringing any agenda to attempts of multiple repeating of the thesis “assigned” to them. As a rule – to point out the main parties responsible for absolutely all problems – “former power”, “opposition”, “entrepreneurs – optimizers leading to sufferings of budget employees”, etc.7 It is evident that such manipulations became especially popular in 2010.

Also it is worth mentioning that for the first time in many years there has been registered a case of journalist disappearing, the majority relating the case with his professional activity. The police did not provide proper, timely and effective investigation of the case.8

Also during 2010 the amount of cases connected with beating or attacks on journalists and prevention them from their activity gradually increased9.

The police in cases of attacks against journalists or of prevention them from journalistic activity did not usually carry out fast and effective investigation. Also as a rule police tends not to perceive these actions as related to journalistic activity. In general the tendency of the police refusing to protect journalists became stronger.

Apart the increase of the amount of pressure on journalists should be mentioned. Such a pressure also was performed by State Security Service making several prophylactic meetings with them.

In response to repressions against freedom of speech on May 21, 2010 the movement “STOP to censorship” was created. The pretexts for the movement initiation were declarations made by journalists of “1+1” and STB channels concerning pressure by their editorial boards.10

But these declarations were the mere pretext. The attempts of the state to interfere with the information policy, to correct it or even to manage it were the real reasons. Declaration of the movement creation was signed by 134 journalists. The main driving force of the movement was a group of journalists who, first of all wanted to defend their right to profession. Apart from journalists the movement was supported by dozens of non-governmental organizations. Thanks to mutual support and censorship cases reveal the movement managed to stop partially the process of freedom of speech limitation.11 But, most probably, the movement only made the process slower, because every month more limitations were registered.

It is worth mentioning the legislative initiatives of the new power in 2010. Majority of those were aimed at freedom of speech limitation. In particular, in June the law “On Personal Data Protection” was adopted, that, nevertheless, will come into force on January 01, 2011, thus it will deal with freedom of speech limitation next year.

 

2. The European Court of Human Rights rulings in cases against Ukraine

In 2009 – 2010 The European Court of Human Rights issued 3 judgments against Ukraine acknowledging the violation of Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights (Freedom of Expression). All of them are related to rather remote events.

In case Marchenko v. Ukraine (19 February 2009, no. 4063/04)12 freedom of expression violation through disproportionate punishment for calumny is acknowledged.

In particular in 1997 Marchenko filed complaints against actions of the Director of a high school in the city of Lviv. Later he also organized manifestation, where respective accusations were distributed on posters. As a result on May 14, 1998 he was convicted for calumny to one year of imprisonment with one year punishment deferral and to 200 UAH fine. The Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court left the decision unchanged.

The Court indicated that Mr. Marchenko, despite him being a representative of the trade union representing the interests of the society had an obligation to respect the reputation of others including the presumption of innocence. The court noted that Mr. Marchenko had to address his declarations first to the manager of the Director before addressing the public opinion. Marchenko would better have complained against the Revision Commission decision, and instead he blamed sharply the director during the picket. That is why the Court came to a conclusion that national bodies reasonably convicted Mr. Marchenko for calumny because his accusations lacked the evidences and violated the director’s right to be considered innocent unless other was proved. But, because national courts convicted the applicant to one year of imprisonment the Court found the violation of Article 10 of the Convention, as far as similar measure of punishment was excessive and could influence on social debates in a negative way.

In other judgment The newspaper Ukraina-Tsentr v. Ukraine dated July 15, 201013 freedom of speech violation was also acknowledged. On June 12, 2002 during the press conference dedicated to mayor elections in the city of Kirovograd, held in UNIAN information agency local journalist, Mr. M. accused one of the candidates, Mr. Y ordering his murder for 5000 USD. According to the newspaper declaration the same information was disseminated by STB TV channel on the same day. On June 14, 2002 in the Newspaper “Ukraina Tsentr” an article appeared, describing the press-conference mentioned. MR. Y quoting especially the following declaration of the article: “Mr. M. accused Mr. Y of ordering his murder” and the quotation of 5000 USD brought in a civil action on defamation to Lenin District Court of Kirovograd city against the newspaper and Mr. M. The Lenin District Court acknowledged the information as false and not confirmed by official sources. The Court also ruled that the newspaper was not free from responsibility and obliged it and Mr. M to pay out as compensation 100000 and 20000 UAH respectively. The ruling of Lenin Court remained unchanged by the Court of Appeal and in October, 2003 by the Supreme Court. The Newspaper paid the compensation imposed and 2500 UAH of the cost.

The court declared that Mr. M’s unsubstantiated statement was very serious, especially within the context of widely discussed issue of Kirovograd mayor elections, and taking into consideration the vulnerability of journalists conducting political columns (18 journalists perished in Ukraine from 1991). But, having declared the newspaper and Mr. M. equally responsible for the statements that in fact belonged to Mr. M., Ukrainian courts did not estimate the relation between the necessity to protect the reputation of Mr. M. and the newspaper right to publish information of social interest. Ukrainian courts also did not explain why they had done it this way. Moreover, they did not consider the issue of interference proportionality and did not take into account the opportunity, offered to Mr. Y by the paper, to respond on the publication. That is why the European Court established that violation of Article 10 of the Convention took place.

In another case Myrskyy against Ukraine, dated May 20, 201014 the court also acknowledged freedom of speech violation. In March 1999 Myrskyy participated in a round table, organized by the Association “For Inter-national Peace and Understanding in Ukraine” in connection with the International Week against Racism. On March 26, 1999 the newspaper “Ukraine and World Today” published selected abstracts from speeches of some participants including the one of Myrskyy titled “Judophobism on a policy level?”

One of the arguments by Myrskyy in that article was as follows: “Unfortunately the Judophobism may be observed not only in social behavior but in policy as well. For example, “The Party of Ukrainian Unity”, defending its aim to provide people with ideology and psychology of national extremism started to act in Lviv”.

On April 28, 1999, members of the party filed a civil suit on defamation to Zaliznychnyy Court of Lviv city. They affirmed in particular that Myrskyy’s declaration was false, discrediting and damaging their honor, dignity and reputation and also depicted the future of the party in a humiliating way. They demanded apology from him and from the editorial board of the newspaper and also a compensation of moral damage. The applicant objected to the action, affirming that his words had been presented in the interpretation of the journalist and were taken out of context.

By its ruling dated March 07, 2002 the court satisfied the action of the applicants partly, obligating Myrskyy to adduce an excuse in the same newspaper. The Court acknowledged that the declaration had been made by him, that it was defamatory and non true. On September 9, 2002 the Court of Appeal supported the ruling and on March 31, 2003 the Supreme Court revoked the cassation. The excuse was published on October 12, 2002.

The European Court indicated that evaluative judgments may not be proved and local court did not define in what context had the statement been made and what meaning it had for political debates. The courts also did not consider the issue of whether the statement had been insulting and stopped only on it being false.

All these rulings remain topical. The first one is important because from time to time People’s Deputies propose to return “calumny” as a crime to Criminal Code; it was excluded out of it in 2001. The second ruling also remains topical, because the courts often do not consider such circumstances even now. The third ruling also deals with the issue of evaluative judgments and the offence in statements, having a political importance for debates in the society.

 

3. Rights of journalists and mass media

As it was mentioned earlier, the year 2010 showed an increase of censorship cases and prevention of journalists from fulfillment of their professional duties. In general according to IMA, for 11 months such cases happened than even in 2004.

Information on the violations registered15

 

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

11 months. 2010

Murdered, disappeared journalists

3

4

0

0

0

0

1

0

1

Arrests, detentions

1

2

8

2

3

1

5

0

4

Beating, attacks, intimidation

23

34

47

16

29

13

29

31

29

Prevention to fulfill professional duties, censorship

 

46

27

52

14

31

23

18

26

61

Assassinations, disappearing, detention, beating, intimidation or other violation applied to journalists

One of the most famous cases was the disappearing of Kharkiv journalist from the newspaper “New Style” Vasyl Klymentiev, who disappeared on August 11, 2010. The Police immediately started the investigation and already on August 15 a criminal file was open according to the article “intended killing”. Nevertheless according to many experts there is no effective and objective investigation carried out in the case. Up to now many circumstances of the journalist disappearing remain unknown and there is no substantial progress in the investigation observed.16

Information on crime victims working in mass media 17

 

Amount of victims per year

2006

2007

2008

2009

6 months 2010

Working in mass media

92

46

47

60

26

Lawsuits against mass media and journalists

The lawsuits a long time ago ceased to be an instrument of pressure on mass media. Cases containing demands to reimburse moral damage in very large amounts remain rare in court practice. Even if a person asks for a court to pay big compensation, practically in all cases the courts decrease its amount gradually.

In present there is no data yet on such cases in 2010, but it is possible to evaluate the dynamics of such lawsuits from 2003 to 2009:

Information on the lawsuits on protection of honor, dignity and business reputation against mass media18

no.

Indicator

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

1.

Were under consideration

19

-

753

926

 

719

 

737

567

2.

Procedure finished

627

514

441

605

490

494

390

2.1

Including

The decision issued

308

250

246

356

265

281

 

194

2.1.1

Including: lawsuits upheld

187

158

150

193

 

168

165

 

107

2.2

Closing the procedure

118

158

-

-

67

 

-

-

2.3

Declaration remained without the consideration

151

141

-

-

150

 

-

-

2.4

Transferred to other courts

50

34

-

-

8

-

-

3.

Amounts of material and moral damage declared to collection, UAH

 

71 247 890

20 315 264

-

-

39 511 170

-

-

4.

Amounts of material and moral damage assigned to collection, UAH

4 534 785

591 591

-

-

636 562

-

-

On October 1, 2010 Sobolev Oleg Yuriyovych declared a lawsuit on protection of honor, dignity and business reputation, refutation of doubtful information and revocation of moral damage against 8 defendants including former assistant to the Minister of Internal Affairs in the region of Kharkiv Yuriy Chumak, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, “Inter” TV channel and several other mass media. By the order of the Minister of the Interior Yuriy Lutsenko dated February 06, 2009 Sobolev was dismissed from the position of the Director of Ordzhonikidze District Division in the city of Kharkiv. Total suit amount consisted of 1200000 UAH. He was dismissed because of the information in mass media on tortures applied to two women in that district police station. The similar lawsuit was filed by other policeman accused of torture in this case. Surprisingly in first case the court stopped the procedure until the payment by the applicant of information and technical services fee and state duty, consisting of considerable amount. But concerning the other lawsuit the court decided to postpone the term of state duty payment and started proceeding on action.

4. Freedom of expression limitation through the protection of public morality

There is still a problem related to the activity of National Expert Commission of Ukraine on Public Morality (see below NEC, National Commission or The Commission http://moral.gov.ua/). The legislation on protection of public morality lacks the precision and predictability, and the decisions by the commission are non founded and non proportional to the aim declared.

Under the pressure of social critique the NEC considerably reduced its activity. In particular more and more its activity was aimed at prevention of the violations, and the prohibition was applied very seldom. The NEC decisions much more often started to contain recommendations and not the obligatory decisions.

Meanwhile the group of People’s Deputies registered the draft bill19, abolishing the Law on Public Morality Protection and, respectively the NEC itself and making the required amendments to other laws in order to protect minors.

The NEC concentrated its effort on promoting its own draft bill20, aiming at considerable changes of the legislation in the field of public morality protection. The bill establishes even more restrictions for freedom of expression. It is based upon the invented by NEC members “right for information space free from materials threatening to physical, intellectual, moral and psychological condition of human being”. And the authorities according to the project have to decide which materials are a threat to human being and respectively will have a right to prohibit distribution of such materials.

As in previous years many decisions by NEC remain inaccessible for public together with NEC conclusions on correspondence of information products to the law on public morality protection. For example, from August 30 to October 25 the NEC provided 85 conclusions dealing with 584 video products, 848 photos, 7 printed items, 44 products of sexual character, 2 mass performances.21 All these conclusions are inaccessible for public.

Taking into consideration the activity of NEC rather surprising was the commission of President to wind the NEC in established order22.

On the next day after presidential decree the same initiative was pronounced by the Minister of Justice. “This is rather strange body…. and we recommended to the Cabinet of Ministers to consider the issue of reasonability for this body to exist” Lavrynovych said.23

 

5. Freedom of expression restriction through privacy defense

On June 24 President of Ukraine signed the Law of Ukraine “On Personal Data Protection”. The Law will come into force on January 1, 2011. It was criticized by human rights activists, mass media and business representatives. The UHHRU24, Independent Association of Broadcasters (NAM) and Association of Ukrainian Banks25 asked to veto the Law.

The Law determines that the law does not apply to the activity of journalist on creation and processing of personal databases. But it applies to the full concerning rules of personal data distribution of the person absent from any databases or present in databases, for example state-owned. Is also applies to the full to mass media.

In practice it means that starting from the day of this Law coming into force it will prohibit mass media distribution for any personal data of a person without his/her consent if he/she does not belong to the first category of state employees.

Moreover, criminal liability is already established for the intrusion into a person’s private life (Article 182 of the Criminal Code), as far as dissemination of such an information already may be considered illegal. Considering this as non sufficient on November 11, 2010 the Government introduced to the Parliament the Draft Bill on making amendments to certain legislative acts of Ukraine on the legislation violation on personal data protection.26

The draft bill provides the amendments to the Law on Information and also provides criminal liability for the violation of the Law on Personal Data Protection.

In many clauses the Law itself violates the requirements of the Council of Europe Convention no. 108 “For the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Data Protection” and several recommendations of the European Council of Ministers, EU standards, in particular EU Directive dated October 24, 1995 no. 95/46/ЄС.

 

6. Recommendations

  1. Bring the Law on Personal Data Protection in correspondence with the international standards.
  2. Cancel the licensing system registration for printed mass media as not corresponding to the requirements of Article 10, European Convention on Human Rights27.
  3. Increase the amount of subjects having a right for publishing activities from the mere enterprises to all kinds of judicial entities. This requires amendments to be made to the Law on Publishing Activities.
  4. To abolish laws “On the Order of Coverage of the Activities of State Power Bodies and Local Self-Government Bodies in Mass Media” and “On State Support of Mass Media and Social Protection of Journalists”; providing elimination of certain privileges to journalists of state owned mass media and to provide them rights equal to those of journalists of private mass media.
  5. It is reasonable to reconsider the electoral legislation in order to provide free discussion in mass media concerning candidates, their weak and strong points and different aspects of their political program and activity. With this purpose it is necessary to define more strictly the notion of advertising and election campaigning.
  6. It is reasonable to prohibit the sponsorship for the news on the level of law.
  7. It is reasonable to elaborate the draft bill on journalists’ rights applying the groundwork made by the State Committee for Television and Radio and the draft bill no. 9175 dated February 27, 2006 “On Protection for Professional Activity of the Journalists”. The problem is rather important in practice, as far as rights of TV and Radio Organizations (TRO) journalists are not defined in legislation at all.
  8. Make amendments to the Law on Television and Radio Broadcasting in order to bring it in correspondence with the Standards of the Council of Europe, OCSE and European Union and also to recently ratified by the Parliament European Convention on Trans-border Television.
  9. Make amendments to the legislation concerning the opportunity to determine real owner of the mass media, especially of TV channels and radio stations and also cross ownership of printed, electronic and other mass media, introducing the effective control over concentration of mass media by one owner or his family, antimonopoly limitations on the information market according to the recommendations by the Council of Europe (for example Recommendations no. R (94) 13), OCSE and European Union and also introducing necessary procedures for punishment of the violators of the legislation on mass media concentration.
  10. Provide fast and transparent investigation of all the declarations concerning facts of violence and death of journalists and also in cases of preventing them from journalistic activity.
  11. To eliminate State Committee for Television and Radio during consideration of the amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine. Besides, it is necessary to reinforce control over expenses by this state body due to numerous cases of abuse, in particular the system of orders for TV and radio programs creation, books publishing and other services provided from state funds should become transparent.
  12. Cancel the Law of Ukraine “On Public Morality Protection”, having adopted the draft bill no. 6532 dated June 16, 2010 on making amendments to certain legislative acts of Ukraine (on public morality protection).

==========

 

1 Prepared by Volodymyr Yavorskyy, the UHHRU Executive Director.

2 See more about the company: http://uaimg.com/ua/. The group includes 7 TV channels including the biggest in rating and air coverage in the country “Inter” TV channel, “Ukrainian News” information agency and also advertisement, sponsorship and production companies.

3 See more detailed information here: http://telekritika.ua/news/2010-03-22/51795.

4 See more detailed information here: http://telekritika.ua/news/2010-11-09/57368.

5 See more detailed information on the trial: “The Frequency Trial” M. Zakusylo, August 31, 2010. Telekrytyka

http://telekritika.ua/nacrada/2010-08-31/55414, and also the chronological order of the events here http://imi.org.ua/content/blogcategory/66/62/.

6 See in more detail the TV news monitoring prepared by the Telekryka paper http://telekritika.kiev.ua/media-continent/monitoring/telenovini/, and also monitoring of political programs: http://telekritika.kiev.ua/media-continent/monitoring/politprogram/.

7 Cynicism of power may be evaluated only by cynical viewers, http://telekritika.kiev.ua/media-continent/monitoring/politprogram/2010-12-03/58084.

8 See the chronology of events in the case of disappearance of Kharkiv journalist Vasyl Klymentiev on the website of the Institute of Mass Media http://imi.org.ua/content/blogcategory/68/65/.

9 See monthly barometer of freedom of speech from January 2009 to December 2010, prepared by Mass Media Institute: http://imi.org.ua/content/category/10/29/50/. The Barometer contains monthly review of the most important cases concerning freedom of speech violation.

10 See in more detail here: “Stop to censorship!: reincarnation of journalistic revolution, In more detail see here: «http://telekritika.ua/2010-07-29/54690, and also: Determined facts of censorship and “jeans” in TSN news on 1+1 (+video), Telekrytyka, May 7, 2010. http://telekritika.ua/media-continent/kritika/column/2010-05-07/52835.

11 See the news of the movement here: http://telekritika.ua/cenzura/, and also «Stop to censorship!”: first results”, Viktoriya Siumar for Telekrytyka, 06-07-2010, http://telekritika.kiev.ua/svoboda-slova/2010-06-07/53481.

12 See the annotation of the ruling in Russian here: http://hr-lawyers.org/index.php?id=1264520917.

13 See the ruling in English: http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view.asp?action=html&documentId=871281. See the annotation of the ruling in Russian here: http://hr-lawyers.org/index.php?id=1286268624. See also The Ruling of the European Court in the case of the newspaper “Ukraina-Tsentr” is passed to the executive service, Telekrytyka, http://telekritika.ua/news/2010-12-02/58055.

14 See the annotation of the Ruling in Russian here:http://hr-lawyers.org/index.php?id=1286272124. Full text of the Ruling in English is available here: http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view.asp?action=html&documentId=868126

15 According to data of several years’ monitoring by the Institute of Mass Media: http://imi.org.ua

16 See the chronology of the events in case of Kharkiv journalist Vasyl Klymentiev disappearing on the website of Institute of Mass Media: http://imi.org.ua/content/blogcategory/68/65/.

17 According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs: http://mvs.gov.ua/mvs/control/mai%20n/uk/publish/article/374130 - per 2010, http://mvs.gov.ua/mvs/control/mai%20n/uk/publish/article/233004 - per 2009.

18 According to the State Court Administration of Ukraine per various years: http://court.gov.ua/sudova_statystyka/. There is no data per 2010 yet.

19 Draft bill № 6532 dated June 16, 2010 on making amendments to certain legislative acts of Ukraine (on protection of public morality), http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/zweb_n/webproc4_1?id=&pf3511=38002.

20 Draft bill № 7132 dated September 15, 2010 on making the amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On Protection of Public Morality” by 10 people’s deputies of Ukraine http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/zweb_n/webproc4_1?id=&pf3511=38551

21 Report on work of the body of National Expert Commission of Ukraine on Public Morality for the period from August 30, 2010 to October 25, 2010, http://moral.gov.ua/news/284/.

22 Clause 7 of the Decree by the President dated December 9, 2010 № 1085/2010 On the Optimization of the System of Central Executive Power Bodies http://president.gov.ua/documents/12584.html.

23 Lavrynovych: It is necessary to abolish strange body for morality, http://24tv.com.ua/news/1/1/63825.

24 See http://helsinki.org.ua/index.php?id=1275650651.

25 See http://helsinki.org.ua/index.php?id=1277016947.

26 See here: http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/zweb_n/webproc4_1?id=&pf3511=38996.

27 It is possible to know about it in more detail from the Special Report of the OCSE Representative on Freedom for Mass Media Miklos Haraszti “Mass media registration within the OCSE region: observations and recommendations” on March 29, 2006.

 

 

 

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