Riot police use violence against journalists outside parliament

On 3 November during the protests near the Verkhovna Rada members of the press were injured. Telekritika was informed of this by Valery Kucheruk, correspondent for Kommersant Ukraine. He says that although journalists and photographers showed their press ID, they were roughly pushed back by riot police together with the demonstrators.  The police, he assert, stepped over people who had fallen., for example, photographer Maxim Trebukhov who was kicked, after he fell, hitting his head and fracturing a rib. Maxim confirmed this in an interview to Telekritika saying that the police had been brutal in their treatment of members of the press. “I saw how they kicked them, hit at their video cameras, and damaged that owned by RIA Novosti.

The rightwing party VO Svoboda reported on their website that the head of the press service of their Kyiv branch and one of their newspaper’s journalists had been detained.

Valery Kucheruk has since issued a formal complaint to the Prosecutor General over obstruction of a journalist carrying out his work, and asks that a criminal investigation be initiated against the Minister of Internal Affairs, Anatoly Mohylyov.

From reports at Telekritika