Protection of journalists’ rights in Ukraine
21.05.2000
The IREXProMedia started to realize a program of legal defense and education in Ukraine. ‘Recently a wave of libel claims, physical attacks and illegal persecutions aimed at punishing mass media and preventing them to do their job which consists in giving the Ukrainian people necessary and important information occurred in Ukraine’. This was declared by Mary Mysiex, the manager of the program ProMedia, commenting on the reasons of starting this program. The program is ready, if necessary, to grant juridical counseling and legal protection to mass media and individual journalists. One of the main directions of the program is granting expert aid to journalists at the stage of the preparation of materials in order to avoid libel claims. Besides, the program is prepared to pay the expenditures for certain trials, defending journalists. The program will carry out monitoring of persecutions of mass media in Ukraine, to inform the public on the trials of mass media, to analyze tendencies that cause weakening mass media rights and help to lobby laws which could help mass media to inform the public truthfully, fully, and operatively.
The administration of the program can be contacted through telephones 224-73-16 or 220-77-61 (Mary Mysiex, Gennadiy Pochtar). The legal counsellor of the program will be the known Kyivan advocate and human rights protection activist Natalya Petrova.
ProMedia is a program aimed at supporting independent mass media; it is financed by the US Agency of international development. This particular program will be financed by the Consortium ‘Superiority of right’ ARD/Checchi.
Our informant
***
The Center of legal defense of journalists has been created in Sumy. The aim of this organization is to support the legal defense of journalists. Parallelly the Center will consult readers in actual legal questions, in changes and amendments to the operating legislation. The Center will be headed by Galina Nakonechnaya, the senior prosecutor of the region procurator’s office.
Our informant
The administration of the program can be contacted through telephones 224-73-16 or 220-77-61 (Mary Mysiex, Gennadiy Pochtar). The legal counsellor of the program will be the known Kyivan advocate and human rights protection activist Natalya Petrova.
ProMedia is a program aimed at supporting independent mass media; it is financed by the US Agency of international development. This particular program will be financed by the Consortium ‘Superiority of right’ ARD/Checchi.
Our informant
***
The Center of legal defense of journalists has been created in Sumy. The aim of this organization is to support the legal defense of journalists. Parallelly the Center will consult readers in actual legal questions, in changes and amendments to the operating legislation. The Center will be headed by Galina Nakonechnaya, the senior prosecutor of the region procurator’s office.
Our informant