An unprecedented leak of personal information of Ukrainian and foreign journalists on May 10 is being condemned by reporters covering Russia’s war against Ukraine, but is praised by a Ukrainian member of parliament.
Ukrainian website Myrotvorets, which collects information on Russian-backed separatist fighters, published a list of nearly 4,500 journalists who received press accreditation to work in Russian-occupied areas of Donetsk Oblast. The database includes journalists’ names, emails, mobile phone numbers and their period of stay in the war-torn eastern city.
The website allegedly obtained the list by hacking into the computers of the Donetsk armed groups.
Roughly half of the journalists on the list are Russian, while the rest come mostly from Western media outlets, including the BBC, The New York Times and others. A few are from Ukrainian publications, which have great difficulty gaining accreditation to operate in the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.
Journalist ‘scoundrels’
Lawmaker Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser and unofficial spokesman for Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, who often promotes the Myrotvorets website, endorsed the publication of the list and called for the establishment of state control over the accreditation of foreign journalists working in Ukraine.
The same practice exists in Russia, where all the foreign journalists need to receive government accreditation to work.
The Myrotvorets website published the list of the accredited journalists in a file called “scoundrels” and wrote that the people on the list had cooperated with the “terrorists,” and thus their data needs to be published.
A number of Ukrainian journalists, including some from the Kyiv Post, signed an open letter condemning the leak and the description of the accredited journalists as traitors who “cooperated with the separatists.”
The Kyiv Prosecutor’s Office has opened a criminal investigation into the publication of the personal data, which could result in charges of deliberately obstructing journalistic activity – a crime punishable by up to three years in jail.
The day after the list was released, Ukrainian freelance journalist Roman Stepanovych, whose personal information was leaked, told the Institute of Mass Information that he had received a threatening email.
“I hope you die, you separatist whore,” the email read.
‘Very alarming’
Several journalists also reacted to the publication of the list, calling it a bad mistake.
“A problem arises when you are on this list and (it) is introduced as a list of people who collaborate with the separatist regime, without distinctions between journalists and propagandists,” Italian photojournalist Cosimo Attanasio, who is on the list, wrote on Facebook.
OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic called the leak “a very alarming development.”
“Journalists report on issues of public interest and they should not be harassed for doing their job,” Mijatovic said on May 11.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, an American organization that promotes press freedom, also condemned the publication and Gerashchenko’s endorsement of it.
Ambassador Jan Tombinski, the head of the European Union delegation to Ukraine, called on Ukrainian authorities to block access to the published database. But as of May 12, the list was still accessible.
Both sides in the conflict in eastern Ukraine issue press accreditation to journalists working in the conflict zone. In areas controlled by Russia, journalists can’t work without an accreditation issued by the separatists.
The journalists who appear in the leaked list were behind some of the key journalism in Russia’s war against Ukraine, including the coverage of the downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17 Boeing in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people on board. The journalists who had the separatists’ accreditation were able to access the site of the tragedy.
Several journalists, including foreign ones, have been detained and suffered mistreatment at the hands of members of the armed gangs in the Donbas.
