Journalist Igor Aleksandrov was beaten to death in Slaviansk.
13.12.2001
On 3 July about 8 a.m. Igor Aleksandrov was attacked near the entrance to the TV company TOP. On 7 July he died without regaining his consciousness. In recent years the Igor Aleksandrov participated in the long court process. In 1998 MP Aleksandr Leshchinskiy (now a member of the fraction Regions of Ukraine) handed a claim, in which he complained that Aleksandrov offended him in one of his TV features. In the same summer the court prohibited Aleksandrov to go in for journalism during five years. Aleksandrov tried to appeal against the verdict several times, but only in 2000 the verdict was acknowledged as illegal. The case was stopped since the claimant refused from his demands because the case was already not actual for him.
The fact that after President Kuchma had been included by the world public to the list of enemies of press and the freedom of speech combined with recent events in Ukraine connected with the freedom of speech and another fact that Kuchma took Aleksandrovs case under his personal control testify that the power in Ukraine is irresponsible and helpless.
In our opinion, in this decision there is a tint of cynicism of the power too. We mean the Presidents remark that in the whole world people perish in scores, but the hue and cry about Aleksandrovs death will be fanned especially energetically. What did the Guarantor of the Constitution mean? Maybe purges in Chechnya and Kossovo? Hardly so...
What must be the number of Ukrainian killed journalists, which will make our President acknowledge that it is under his rule not only the freedom of speech, but even the right for life are brutally violated?
Our informant
The fact that after President Kuchma had been included by the world public to the list of enemies of press and the freedom of speech combined with recent events in Ukraine connected with the freedom of speech and another fact that Kuchma took Aleksandrovs case under his personal control testify that the power in Ukraine is irresponsible and helpless.
In our opinion, in this decision there is a tint of cynicism of the power too. We mean the Presidents remark that in the whole world people perish in scores, but the hue and cry about Aleksandrovs death will be fanned especially energetically. What did the Guarantor of the Constitution mean? Maybe purges in Chechnya and Kossovo? Hardly so...
What must be the number of Ukrainian killed journalists, which will make our President acknowledge that it is under his rule not only the freedom of speech, but even the right for life are brutally violated?
Our informant