Head of the National Union of journalists expressed his anxiety about the terror applied to journalists

Igor Lubchenko, the Head of the National Union of journalists of Ukraine, directed the letter to Yuri Smirnov, the Minister of Interior of Ukraine, in which he expressed the anxiety of the NUJU about the terror applied to mass media workers. I. Lubchenko points out that, soon after the death of Dnepropetrovsk journalist Vladimir Efremov, some unknown criminals beat Anatoliy Naumov, the editor-in-chief of the weekly “Dosye”, in Zaporozhye, and Oleg Eltsov, the editor of the Internet-edition “Ukraina kriminalnaya”, in Kyiv. The fact that the beatings took place near the houses of the journalists and that the victims were not robbed allows to think that the attacks were connected with the professional activities of the journalists.

Therefore, Igor Lubchenko asked the Minister of Interior to control the investigation of the cases of murders and beatings of journalists and to inform the public about the results.

I. Lubchenko appealed to Sviatoslav Piskun, the General Prosecutor of Ukraine, with the request to conduct at the end of September the collegium of the General Prosecutor’s office with the participation of the NUJU secretary, and to sum up at this collegium the investigation of the cases concerning the attacks on journalists.

«Svoboda slova: Poltavshchina», No. 38, 28 July 2003