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Head of the NUJU I. Lubchenko about criminal attempts at journalist

08.04.2004   

Igor Lubchenko, the Head of the National Union of journalists of Ukraine, and the NUJU are worried with the continuation of the terror against mass media workers.

I. Lubchenko points out that, soon after the death of Dnepropetrovsk journalist Vladimir Efremov, some unknown criminals beat Anatoliy Naumov, the editor-in-chief of the weekly “Dosye”, in Zaporozhye, and Oleg Eltsov, the editor of the Internet-edition “Ukraina kriminalnaya”, in Kyiv. The fact that the beatings took place near the houses of the journalists and that the victims were not robbed allows to think that the attacks were connected with the professional activities of the journalists.

The Head of the National Union of journalists directed the letter to Yuri Smirnov, the Minister of Interior of Ukraine, in which he expressed the anxiety of the NUJU about the terror applied to journalists and asked the Minister to control the investigation of the cases of murders and beatings of journalists and to inform personally the public about the results.

I. Lubchenko appealed to Sviatoslav Piskun, the General Prosecutor of Ukraine, with the request to conduct at the end of September the collegium of the General Prosecutor’s office with the participation of the NUJU secretary, and to sum up at this collegium the investigation of the cases concerning the attacks on journalists.

On 14 July 2003 Dnepropetrovsk journalist Volodymir Efremov perished in a road accident: his car collided with a truck. 52-year-old V. Efremov was the editor-in-chief of the Dnepropetrovsk newspaper “Sobor” owned by the Dnepropetrovsk oblast council, headed the 11th TV channel, informational agency “Sobor” and the newspaper “Dnepropetrovsk”. For last three years he has been a correspondent of the Institute of mass information in Dnepropetrovsk.

On 17 July Anatoliy Naumov, the acting general manager of the Zaporozhye oblast weekly “Dosye”, a member of the National Union of journalists, was attacked in Zaporozhye. The attack was committed about 20:30 in the doorway of the apartment house where Naumov lived. When Naumov entered the house, where, for some reasons, the light was switched off, he was hit on the head. The criminal (or criminals) disappeared immediately after the attack; they did not try to rob the journalist.

On 24 July, in Kyiv, two strangers attacked journalist Oleg Eltsov, the editor of the Internet-edition “Ukraina kriminalnaya”. When Eltsov went out from his flat, two strangers (about 25-30 years old) ran up to him near the elevator and tried to stun him with electro-shocker and fists. Yet, O. Eltsov began to defend himself, and the attackers ran away. (The independent media trade union, 28 June 2003).

(UNIAN)

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