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Board of the communist party cut off in Krivoy Rog

13.12.2002   
Mykola Korobko, Krivoy Rog
The events, which are occurring these days in Krivoy Rog, shows, it seems, that the communist party joined the opposition. The board for placing the communist press was dismounted by the order of the mayor. Poltava journalist L. Kucherenko vs. state officials. Ludmila Kucherenko, the editor-in-chief of the Poltava newspaper „Novy den“, turned to the oblast prosecutor’s office with the request to start a criminal case against state officials for impeding her legal journalistic activities. The Poltava town council impeded her activities by the refusal to give her the requested information about the town mayor.

The events, which are occurring these days in Krivoy Rog, shows, it seems, that the communist party joined the opposition. On the XXII CPSU Congress Street the board for placing the communist press was dismounted. The metal legs of the board were cut off on the ground level by a team sent by the authorities. The situation in the town is firmly controlled by the mayor, so it is obvious that the event was ordered from the top.

It should be noted that such boards for the press were owned in different places of the town only by the communist party. It is widely known that mayor Yu. Lubinenko is benevolent to the „former vanguard of the working class“. The former secretary of the district communist party committee did not permit to change a single name of streets and other town objects given in the Soviet times. He motivated this decision by sparing the town budget. Now the mayor has become a persona grata to President Kuchma. He spent a lot of efforts in order to overcome the resistance of communist deputies of the town council, who protested against the idea to nominate Leonid Kuchma as a honorable town citizen.

Poltava journalist L. Kucherenko vs. state officials

Ludmila Kucherenko, the editor-in-chief of the Poltava newspaper „Novy den“, turned to the oblast prosecutor’s office with the request to start a criminal case against state officials for impeding her legal journalistic activities.

As early as 20 May this year Ms. Kucherenko sent to the Poltava town council the request about the information concerning Anatoliy Kukoba, the town mayor. The journalist was interested if the mayor was going to retire from his post since he was elected to the Supreme Rada.

In spite of the legal limitation to answer such requests within 10 days, the request was not answered during a month. When, on 17 June, Ludmila Kucherenko together with Anatoliy Banny, the editor of the newspaper „Pryvatna sprava“, and Oleksiy Gavrikov, the head of the oblast committee „Pravozakhyst“, came to the town council to learn about the lot of the request. In the press service of the town council they got the answer that the officials did not intended to response.

L. Kucherenko believes that Mr. Zinenko, the head of the staff of the town council, and Mr. Kikt, the head of the press service, impeded her journalistic activities ignoring her request, thus violating the right of readers to learn the socially important information, which the information about the status of the head of the local self-rule organ obviously is. In this connection the journalist asks the prosecutor’s office to start the criminal case after Article 171 (part 1) of the Criminal Code (impeding legal professional journalistic activities) and to draw the guilty to responsibility.

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