Monitoring of information conflicts in Ukraine - 2001.

Foreword

We present our readers the report about monitoring the informational conflicts in 2001. The monitoring was carried out basing on the official information obtained by our group, the analysis of the Ukrainian laws, court and administrative practices, the experience of the Kharkov Group for human rights protection (KhG, in what follows) in rendering help to journalists and mass media, whose rights were violated, the information given by the correspondents of the periodical editions of the KhG: „Prava ludyny“ and „The freedom of expression“ about the informational violations in Ukraine, messages and periodicals of other Ukrainian NGOs, which deal with the protection of the freedom of speech (the Program of legal protection and enlightenment of mass media IREX ProMedia, Institute of mass information, European institute of mass media, Crimean Center of independent political researchers and journalists, Poltava media club and others) and publications in the press. The review of these information sources is given in the appendix to this report, which was published as a separate book „The review of messages about the violations in the informational sphere in Ukraine (2001)“.

We are sincerely obliged to all our colleagues, who collect and distribute the information about the state of the freedom of expression in Ukraine.

 

1. General provisions

According to Article 10 of the European Convention of the protection of human rights and basic freedoms, the freedom of expression includes „the freedom to have one’s own opinion and the freedom to obtain and distribute information without any interference from the side of state organs and regardless of state frontiers“. Thus, Article 10 protects simultaneously the freedom of opinion, freedom of speech and freedom of information. It is obvious that the right for free expression of one’s opinion as many aspects. In the present report an attempt is made to analyze and classify the informational conflicts in Ukraine in 2001. For this we frequently use the method suggested by the Fund of protecting glasnost (Russia, Moscow).

In 2001 we registered 315 conflicts, among them 172 conflicts, in which, as we believe, the freedom of expression of opinion was violated, and 143 conflicts, when journalists and/or mass media were accused of violations laws (one of the main sources was the data of the Program of legal enlightenment and protection of mass media IREX ProMedia about 98 conflicts in the informational sphere). In six cases journalists and/or mass media were at the same time both victims and offenders. In our opinion, these data cannot be regarded as exhaustive: in fact the number of conflicts was much larger. Yet, many of them do not become public. In particular, the court statistics do not separate trials, where journalists and/or mass media were one of the sides, and such trials become widely known only post factum. For example, only few criminal cases on slander (Article 125 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine-1961) became publicly known, whereas, according to the data of the Ministry of justice, in 1998-2000 and during the fist half of 2001 the number of such cases was 372, and 8 people were condemned to incarceration.

In should be noticed that the printed mass media participate in much more conflicts than electronic mass media: the latter were involved only in 29 conflicts (without accounting the attempts at journalists and mass media). 10 of these conflicts concerned licensing, and almost all remaining are linked with the National TV and radio company of Ukraine, which got many well-grounded, in out opinion, civil claims, and the radio „Liberty“, whose retranslating was blocked in a number of oblasts last year. Upon the whole, the electronic mass media (except the Internet editions) are much more obedient and disciplined than newspapers. This can be explained by their greater dependence on the owners and the power organs and by a more diligent control over their functioning.

So, with whom do journalists and mass media conflict? The most strenuous relations they have with the organs of state power, especially of the executive power. It is the organs of the executive power that violate the freedom of expression most frequently, the same organs have claims against journalist and mass media most frequently (62% of the total number of conflicts without accounting the attempts at journalists and mass media; here the organs of the executive power include the organs of prosecutor’s offices and the USS). The second place is occupied by private persons (10.1%), the third – by deputies of different levels (8.9%), they are followed by mass media administrations (4.8%), representatives of the opposition and business (4.4% each), political parties (2.9%) and judges (2%).

The distribution of the conflicts over the regions of Ukraine is presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

The absolute record-holder in the number of conflicts is the capital. This can be easily explained by the fact that it is Kyiv where is the greatest concentration of TV and radio companies broadcasting throughout Ukraine, the lion’s share of all-Ukrainian printed editions, most of opposition newspapers, etc. The big proportion of conflicts in Odessa is caused by the great number of claims against mass media about protecting honor and dignity; last year there were 20 such trials. Many of these claims appeared as the result of the struggle for governor’s post between Eduard Gurvits and Ruslan Bodelian.

A similar reason acts in Lugansk: here the number of conflicts increased because of the political struggle connected with the dismissal of former Lugansk mayor Anatoliy Yagoferov. The relations between the Poltava authorities and some local mass media worsened die to the growing enmity between the President and the opposition. That is in the Poltava oblast, where several leading members of the opposition were elected as to the Supreme Rada (Grigoriy Omelchenko, Anatoliy Ermak and others), so the opposition mass media could be preserved there.

The distribution of conflicts over time is rather uniform, without big peaks and falls. A slight growth of the number of conflicts in February-April is connected, firstly, with the opposition activities and responding blows of the top authorities (e.g. the events of 9 March became the sources of several conflicts) and, secondly, with holding the competition for licensing the channels and frequencies.

2. Violations of the freedom of expression

In 2001 172 conflicts were registered that were caused by violating the freedom of expression. Table 2 presents the qualification of these conflicts depending on the type of violations. The sum in the column 3 exceeds 100%, since many conflicts may be related to several types of violations.

Table 2

It is remarkable that the number of the facts of restricting access to information is comparatively not large, and all of them concern restricting the right to attend the organs of state power and to be present at meeting of these organs. So, journalists were not admitted to the meetings of town councils in Lugansk and Khartsyzsk and of oblast councils in Kirovograd and Nikolayev, the procedure of the access of journalist to the buildings of oblast state administration in Lugansk, Poltava and Rivne is extremely complicated. There were none facts of the restrictions in giving accreditation, of the ungrounded refusals to give information and restricting the access to open documents. It seems that either Ukrainian journalists are extremely incurious and do not ask what is not permitted to ask (for example, what is the fate of goods confiscated by custom officers), or they do not want to make public the facts of refusals and to conflict because of this hoping against hope to obtain the needed information in future.

Almost nothing is also known about the court claims of journalists and mass media trying to protect their rights, although there are more than enough reasons for it. This testifies about the unwillingness of journalists to protect their rights on the legal level, they prefer to organize public actions, loud and sometimes hysterical and sometimes just imitating the struggle for the freedom of speech. In the 13 cases of this kind, where claims were handed to court, there were no ways to retreat: four cases were connected with the TV companies, which got a refusal of a license, six cases were connected with illegal dismissals and one – with illegal actions of militiamen.

That is why it is necessary to point out the importance of the precedent created by the newspaper „Melitopolskie Vedomosti“. The newspaper won the case about protecting business reputation against town mayor Viktor Sychov caused by his statement that the newspaper allegedly washed money during the election campaing-1998.

 

2.1. Criminal attempts at journalists and mass media

The number of criminal attempts at journalists and editorial offices of mass media has noticeably grown compared to 2000. Although most attempts at journalists seem to be not connected with their professional activities, the increase of such crimes is disturbing. The public seems to get accustomed to such attempts as if to something normal. We certainly have not registered all such incidents: in the middle of September Viktor Zakharov, the deputy head of the investigating militia directorate, told that 60 out 99 cases of the attacks at journalists committed in the current year were uncovered.

The number of perished journalist has grown too. If during 1996-2000 seven journalists were killed and four died from grave body injuries, then in 2001 six journalists perished: Igor Aleksandrov, Oleg Breus, Yuri Gonchar, Anatoliy Kovalenko, Viktor Ovsienko and Oleg Cherniak. Only one of them, Igor Aleksandrov, was killed because of his professional activities.

It is remarkable that, compared to 200l, the number of attacks at editorial offices of mass media has grown. We registered six such cases: „Tovarishch“, „Evropa-Tsentr“, „Panorama Sevastopolia“, „Ludyna i Svit“ and „Tsilkom Vidverto“. Yet, there are no grounds to speak that these events have a political lining.

Perhaps, some attacks at journalists were cased by political reasons, although there are no either direct or oblique proofs. Yet, some doubts remain, since the journalists and the editorial boards see the connection with their professional activities. We mean the case of the road accident with Tamara Prosianik, the editor of the newspaper „Informatsiyny Bulleten“ the attack at Cherkassy journalist Ludmila Kokhanets (a stranger waited for her in the doorway and tried to throttle her saying „you must stop being interested in this affair“ – the journalist elucidated Gongadze’s case); the attack at Ternopil journalist and publicist Yuri Mativos, the attempt of exploding the flat of Mikhail Kolomey, the manager of the TV company „Odessa Plus“ and other crimes against journalists.

The incidents with ten journalists are, in opinion, connected with their professional activities and must be related to persecutions due to political motives.

 

2.2. Persecutions due to political motives

We relate to this type all the conflicts in the informational sphere, which have obvious political grounds, and about which there enough data to believe that they are connected with violating the freedom of expression, initiated by state authorities and local self-rule organs.

To this type we relate beating, intimidating and other suppressive measures against journalists involved to the fight of various political forces or trying to inform the public about the misuses of authorities, about the attitude of the opposition to what happens in the country, etc. Igor Markov, a journalist of the Dnepropetrovsk opposition newspaper „Litsa“, was beaten. Markov is the author of a number of critical articles about head of the oblast state administration Nikolay Shvets. The day before the attack a car stopped aside Markov, and a stranger said to him: „You write too much“. Pavlograd journalist Valeriy Lebedik, who for many years elucidated the corruption in the Dnepropetrovsk oblast in the newspapers „Dnepropetrovskaya Pravda“ and „Slovo Veterana“, twice turned to per Kuchma with the complaint that he and his family were threatened by the prosecutor’s officers of Pavlograd. Before this Lebedik turned to General Prosecutor Mikhail Potebenko, but he did not get any response. In December 2000 the journalist was beaten by strangers. On 24 May his house was put on fire. Mukachevo journalist Stepan Sikora, a correspondent of the Trans-Carpathian newspaper „Stary Zamok“, was bombed by anonymous telephone calls. Some strangers proposed the journalist „to hush down“ and to stop publishing the journalist’s investigations and denouncing critical materials. Else he was threatened by the fate of Gongadze. This conflict was caused by the series of articles about the wave of protests of Mukachevo inhabitants against the passivity of the local authorities. In Lugansk Yuri Yurov, the editor of the newspaper „XXI Vek“, workers of TV company ԩ+1“ Sergey Emelyanchenko and Oleg Pritykin, workers of TV company Efir-1 Aleksey Movsiyan and Olga Kuznetsova and others were beaten or threatened with physical violence. All these facts, as well as other events around the newspaper „XXI Vek“ and the closure of the TV channel „Efir-1“, are undoubtedly connected with the struggle for the post of Lugansk mayor (see subsection 5.1.3 of the book „The review of messages about the violations in the informational sphere in Ukraine (2001)“).

When it is impossible to shut a journalist up by more or less civilized methods, he is murdered. This is, in our opinion, the reason of the death of Igor Aleksandrov, who wrote about corruption in the Donetsk region. The version of the investigation that Aleksandrov was killed by mistake, being confused with another person, seems to us doubtful and contradictory (see subsection 5.1.2 of the book „The review of messages about the violations in the informational sphere in Ukraine (2001)“).

A wide armory of „political weapons“ is used against the journalists supporting the opposition, even with those, who consider their duty just to inform the society about the opposition public actions. On 2 March, while dispersing the tent camp on Kreshchatik, militia applied force against the UNIAN newsmen. Correspondent of the Lviv newspaper „Postup“ Dmitriy Shurkhalo was beaten for his attempt to obtain an interview from some civil-clothed men about the behavior of militia on 9 March concerning the participants of the action „For truth“. The reaction of the militia was to take away the journalist’s documents and dictaphone and to detain him for 15 days in the capacity of an administrative punishment. Thanks to the interference of ombudsperson Nina Karpacheva he stayed in the cooler 5 days instead of 15. Measures of administration punishment are also applied to disobedient journalists. The administration of the Volyn state university warned Andrey Kryshtalsky, a correspondent of the radio „Liberty“ in Lutsk, who, besides, is the editor of the university newspaper, about his inadequacy for holding his post. The reason was his reportage on radio „Liberty“ about the mass meeting „In protection of the Constitution“. As the journalist found, the students, pupils, teachers and civil servants of the town were driven coercively by state officials. Alla Margulenko, the author of the public-political feature „Audience“ (㎜ channel“, Lviv), was just sacked after the feature devoted to the cassette scandal. Trivial provocations are applied as well. For example, a opposition newspaper „Grani“ was distributed in Kyiv. The newspaper dwelt on the corruption of the opposition and that its activities were bought.

Opposition editions are scrupulously checked by various agencies, they got refusals from printing shops, in particular from the largest publishing house „Press of Ukraine“ (newspaper „Grani“, „Resume“, „Svoboda“, „Informatsiyny bulleten“ and others). The state enterprise „Press“ prevents the subscription to opposition newspapers refusing to distribute them. The newspaper „Svoboda“ (which is steppled together by hand) managed to be serviced by the centralized distribution network only after winning the court process against „Press“. Some opposition newspapers sent around their products themselves and indicate the non-existing printing shops in their date-lines, thus violations the law because they have no right to be published without the properly filled date-line. The confiscation of entire runs also happened.

The TV and radio air is defended from the opposition editions most carefully. For example, not a single national TV channel shows Yulia Timoshenko and Aleksandr Moroz. All national channels refused to Timoshenko’s block to cooperate during the election. Even if such transmissions occur somewhere in provinces, then the reaction of the authorities is immediate. Since the beginning of 2001 the transmissions of the Cherkassy TV and radio company „Alt“ have been stopped because it dared to translate an interview with Aleksandr Moroz immediately after his sensational speech in the Supreme Rada and admitted Grigoriy Omelchenko to participate in „Media-club“. IN Odessa Igor Grinshteyn and Sergey Kovalinskiy, the popular showmen of the TV program „Oko“, were sent to the coercive leave after MPs Yuri Karmazin and Viktor Shishkin were permitted to speak in „Oko“ some time later the journalists were proposed to leave the company. Four cable TV-organizations in Poltava terminated the re-translation of the programs of the TV and radio company „Yuta“, which tried to inform about the misuses of the Poltava authorities found by the main revision commission. The termination of the re-translation of the programs of radio „Liberty“ in the Donetsk and Nikolayev oblasts belongs to similar sanctions. The journalists of „Liberty“ assert that some their features were jammed in Kyiv, West Ukraine and the Kharkov oblast. By the same reasons some observers explain the competition organized by the National council in charge of TV and radio broadcasting for the frequency, which was being used by radio „Continent“ for five years. This is radio „Continent“ that re-translated the features of the BBC, the Voice of America and Deutsche Welle.

The coercive subscription to the editions controlled by authorities may be also regarded as the violation of the freedom of expression. Such facts were registered in Chernovtsy and Nikolayev, we happened to hear that also about other regions of Ukraine.

 

2.3. Impeding publication and distribution of mass media products

Mentioned in the previous subsection he facts of closing TV companies, terminating re-translation of the radio „Liberty“, the refusal of printing shops to print some opposition newspapers, confiscation of entire newspaper runs may be related to this type of violations of the freedom of expression. The decisions of the administration of TV companies about prohibiting these or those features also are the birds of the same feather. For example, in May-June 2001 the Lviv state TV company stopped to transmit the features „Audience“, „Day after day“, „Weekly review“, „Political chessboard“ and „Coffee a Lviv“. This the reason for Lviv public organizations to speak that the TV company established a peculiar „commercial censorship“ on some plots of public orientation. The feature of Yuri Didenko, the chairman of the local Rukh, devoted to reforming the agrarian sector in the region, was taken off from the Nikolayev radio.

 

2.4. Interference into professional activities of journalists and editorial boards

Some decisions and activities of local power organs may not be assessed otherwise as the interference into professional activities of editorial boards. The press service of the Donetsk oblast administration distributed among journalists the sheets with questions before the press conference of Viktor Yanukovich, the head of the oblast administration. The deputies of the Novomoskovsk town council prohibited to the local newspaper to comment the speeches at their sessions. In the district center Petropavlovsk in the Dnepropetrovsk oblast the authorities tried to check the contents of the district newspaper before its printing.

We also registered some facts of the interference of administrations of TV and radio companies into the work of editorial boards of the companies. A journalist of the Lugansk oblast TV stated that the general manager forced him to elucidate the activities of Lugansk mayor Anatoliy Yagoferov only in the negative light. The administration of the Lviv oblast TV company also meddled into the creative work of the subordinate journalists. Some workers of the National TV company of Ukraine dared to protest against similar actions of Vadim Dolganov, the president of the company. It cost them their jobs. Popular showman Mykola Veresen left his job in the TV company ԩ+1“ because his feature „Without taboo“ began to be censored after his feature of 2 November devoted to the problem of torture and cruel treatment.

Rude treatment of journalists by authorities is rather frequent, especially in the Crimea. In Alupka the deputy head of the town executive committee insulted the editor of the newspaper „Alubika“, rushed at him, snatched his dictaphone and threw it to the garbage bin. Vladimir Shvetsov, the mayor of Saki, being displeased by the critical article by Mikhail Shishliannikov, a correspondent of the newspaper „Krymskaya gazeta“, more than once threatened over the telephone the journalist with physical violence in a brutal and insolent form. The journalist recorded several calls on tape and complained to court. Acting vice-prime-minister of the Crimea Vladimir Tuterov summoned Elena Rozhen, the chief-editor of the feature ㎜ minutes“, and taught her how to filter the unneeded information. At the same time he threatened to shut up a well-known Crimean lady-journalist Lilia Budjurova because he disliked the questions she asked at a press conference.

 

3. Offences, in which journalist and mass media are accused

In 2001 we registered 143 conflicts, where journalists or/and mass media were accused of some offences. Table 3 shows the distribution of such conflicts according to types of offences.

Table 3

In our opinion, many of these offences are illusory and far-fetched, and the accusations are ungrounded. In many cases such accusations is nothing but the continuation of the policy of persecutions of disobedient journalists and mass media. Our analysis of such conflicts showed that journalists were accused of imaginary offences not less than in 30% of the cases, that the pretensions to mass media were just not more than in 25%, and in the remaining conflicts it is impossible to conclude whether the accused were guilty.

The criminal case about divulging state secrets on the site of Oleg Eltsov „Criminal Ukraine“ belongs to the last category. By the way, it was the first conflict we registered that was connected with the Internet. Yet, most probably, it was not the last one, taking into account the decision of the Council of national security and defense of 31 October, the President’s Decree of 6 December, the draft of the Informational Code, etc. It is difficult to believe that Eltsov did not understand what he was doing when he placed the documents classified as „top secret“ on his site. Meanwhile, this information is of undoubted public interest, and its divulging inflicts less harm than keeping it secret.

All the four criminal cases on slander are purely academic since slander was decriminalized by the new Criminal Code. Note that in all these cases the plaintiffs are top authorities: acting prime-minister (at the moment of publication of the article) and the head of an oblast militia; a city mayor; the chairman of an oblast court; a judge of an oblast center court. The journalists of these articles sincerely believed in what they wrote, so there were no reasons at all to speak about slander.

The criminal case against journalists, Ruslan Antonik and Sergey Potamanov, were widely reflected in the press. The both journalists were condemned, and the both verdicts were doubtful. The third criminal case was connected with a property conflict concerning the newspaper „Tyzhnevik Galitchyny“, the fourth concerned the conflict of the journalists from the Odessa newspaper „Porto Franko“ with a judge.

Almost all informational conflicts connected with licensing were caused by competitions for re-distribution of channels and frequencies. To have a right judgment if the decisions were just to deprive of licenses several regional channels: TV and radio company „Ishtar“ (Vinnitsa), „Amidas“ (Sevastopol), „YuNGKOM-YuG“ (Odessa), ԭ kanal“ (Kyiv) and radio „Kontinent“ (Kyiv) – some additional information is needed. We must only note that only c court has the right to deprive of a license.

The overwhelming majority of pretensions to journalists and mass media have the form of court claims about protecting honor, dignity and business reputation. 73% of plaintiffs are public figures (deputies of various levels, state officers, juridical persons connected with executive power, political parties and public organizations), 18% are individuals and 9% are businessmen. Thus, the lion’s share of people, who fight for their honor and dignity, are political figures. It should be noted, however, that the common opinion that mass media are always defeated in such processes, and even go bankrupt, is erroneous. For example the courts rejected claims from heads of oblast militia of Odessa and Sevastopol Ivan Grigorenko and Vivat Beloborodov, MPs Vasiliy Chervoniy and Anna Antonova, and other prominent plaintiffs. Nonetheless, the wife of Sergey Ivanchenko, condemned to 15 years of incarceration for organizing the attempt at Natalya Vitreno, won the claim against the newspaper „Fakty“. Besides, Ukrainian courts more and more often refer in their argumentation to the practices of the European court of human rights according to Article 10. The resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of Ukraine of 25 May in this category of affairs and well-planned work of the Program of legal enlightenment and protection of mass media of IREX ProMedia played an immense role here.

The case about the inviolability of journalists’ sources is of noticeable interest. On 9 May a clash between communists and members of youth right-radical organizations occurred in Ternopil. Next day an investigation officer of the Ternopil oblast militia directorate turned to the editorial board of the newspaper „Ternopilska Gazeta“ with the request to give him the photo film, where the clash was fixed. Besides, the officer asked the editor-in-chief to inform him about the personal data of the journalist and the photographer, who observed and elucidated the event, wanting to interrogate than as witnesses. After the editor refused to give the film and the requested information, the investigator summoned him for interrogation as a witness. The second summon to the interrogation the editor-in-chief of „Ternopilska Gazeta“ received after the editorial board explained to the militia representatives that they might use as evidence the publications in the newspaper, since the journalists were present at the place of the clash as newsmen, and not as participants.

For the first time, as we know, the decision was taken about preliminary prohibition of a publication. The weekly ?“ began to publish the materials about financial gerrymanders of the administration of „Damian-bank“ in Switzerland. They were accused of falsifying documents and misuse of trust. As a result, in 1994 19.9 million USD, which belonged to the state concern „Agroservis“ were stolen and transferred to currency accounts abroad. The Swiss court issued the guilty verdict. Nonetheless, the Pecherskiy district court of the city of Kyiv, having received the claim on protecting honor, dignity and business reputation from bank president Yuriy Sidorenko, took the decision to stop the publications. The weekly ?“ was printed with a blank on a page, where it was written that the article had been prohibited by censors.

It should be mentioned that the number of claims against journalists and/or mass media about inviolability of private life is rather small. In our opinion, the concept of privacy is strange yet in the national mentality, so the press publications often abuse privacy, but the number of complaints is not great.

It should be also mentioned that in 2001 only one claim was handed against journalists and mass media connected with xenophobia, although there existed numerous reasons for it. For instance, the feature „Seven days“ (4 March, 21:00, YT-1) held the poll of viewers asking the question: „Would Ukrainian citizens wish to retain a gypsy and tramp camp in the central Kyivan street Kreshchatik?“ Besides, on 5 March in the feature „Accents“ showman V. Lapikura called „political gypsies“ the public representatives, who stayed in the tent camp in Kreshchatik. In their open letter to Vadim Dolganov, the president of the Vational TV company of Ukraine, the gypsies of the Trans-Carpathian region decidedly protested against the „insulting use of the name of their national minority“ in the features of the First national TV channel. They also demanded from the journalists of YT-1 to „publicly excuse before the gypsy community“. Yet, we have not heard any excuses yet.

Upon the whole, we may conclude that the laws permit to defend efficiently the rights of journalists and mass media, if their activities were not malevolent. For instance, the newspaper „Svoboda“ (former „Politika“) had passed through more than 20 trials during last years, and won most of them. The well-known opposition newspaper „Informatsiyny bulleten“ has won 14 out 15 trials; only one claim against the newspaper was partly satisfied.