The request of Cherkassy journalists on the meeting with UNA-UNSO member Ruslan Zaychenko condemned after the “case of 9 March” was rejected

On 5 June several Cherkassy journalists failed to visit the village of Khutory near Cherkassy, where the penitentiary establishment No. 62 is situated, to which Ruslan Zaychenko, the UNA-UNSO member condemned after the “case of 9 March”, had been transferred.

The correspondent of “ForUm” communicates that on Monday the editorial board of the weekly “Antenna” turned to Sergiy Mironenko, the head of the Cherkassy oblast penitentiary department, with the request to permit them the meeting and the interview with the convict.

“Yet, the editorial board did not obtain the official answer”, informed Valeriy Vorotnik, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper. “Today several journalists wanted to visit the penitentiary, to meet Ruslan and to learn about the conditions of his upkeep. Before the departure we phoned to Sergiy Mironenko and learned that there was no need to go there. The head of the penitentiary department said that he had no wish to cooperate with the newspaper “Antenna”. The reason, according to his words, was the critical materials that had been published in our newspaper”.

By the words of V. Vorotnik, the department head said that, according to the operating laws, a condemned had to express his own wish to communicate with the press. S. Mironenko rejected the proposition to deliver to R. Zaychenko the request about the meeting and “gave no advice how the journalists could inform the condemned about their intention to meet him”.

The editorial collective of “Antenna” states that they are not going to resign the idea to interview the “famous modern prisoner of consciousness”. The journalists placed on the newspaper site the note about the prohibition of the meeting with Ruslan Zaychenko. They ask to consider this note as one more appeal to the penitentiary department, under the jurisdiction of which R. Zaychenko stays now. We want to remind that Cherkassy dweller Ruslan Zaychenko, one of the leaders of the UNA-UNSO, was condemned by the Pecherskiy district court of Kyiv to four years of incarceration for the organization of mass disorders during the protest actions of 9 March 2001. The appeal court decreased the term of incarceration to three years and two months. Zaychenko did not plead guilty.

Andriy Lubenskiy, Cherkassy, «ForUm»,
http://ukr.for-ua.com/news/2003/06/05/123835.html