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The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

“Lvivska gazeta” vs. Sergiy Medvedchuk

08.04.2004   

The Lviv tax inspection got into the focus of the attention of local press again. The numerous chicaneries of the tax administration at “Lvivska gazeta” drove the journalists to despair and, on the eve of the first anniversary of the creation of the newspaper, they decided to bring the claim to court against the tax service. It is known in Lviv that Markiyan Ivashchikhin and Yaroslav Rushchishin, two local businessmen close to the bloc “Our Ukraine”, are the investors of the “improper newspaper”. On 8 September the lawyers of the company “Lvivska gazeta” handed the claim against Sergiy Medvedchuk, the head of the Lviv tax administration, who, in the opinion of the newspaper, had spread at one of his press conferences the inauthentic information about the activities of the newspaper. The weekly asks the court to forbid Medvedchuk to spread the false information.

“The Lviv tax administration tried to levy the fine from the newspaper, and the sum was sufficient for the institution of a criminal case. 23 thousand hryvnas were imposed on us because of the erroneous decisions of tax inspectors. In particular, we had to pay 17 thousand for the use of the Internet and phone by the newspaper allegedly for non-service purposes. Yet, journalists cannot work without these modern communication means”, says Yuri Nazaruk, the manager of the edition.

In the opinion of Oleg Onisko, the editor of the weekly, the methods applied by the tax administration evidence on the goals different from a usual check of documents. The quibbles of the tax inspectors, he believes, have the political grounds, since they resemble, most of all, “the total pressure on the newspaper”.

(«Ukraina moloda», No. 167, 12 September 2003)

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