In an official tweet on June 6, President Petro Poroshenko praised Ukraine’s post-revolutionary freedom of speech.
“Freedom of speech is one of the great achievements of Ukraine since the Revolution of Dignity,” the tweet read.
But the message came at a time when Western journalists and human rights groups have been speaking out over mounting censorship in the country. Just two weeks ago, Poroshenko banned 17 Russian media executives and journalists from entering Ukraine as part of the fight against Kremlin propaganda or Russia’s “information war.”
The ban issued on May 27 has been widely condemned by Western organizations, even though Ukraine lifted sanctions on 29 foreign journalists in a second decree issued on the same day.
The first decree banned several journalists, including Channel One TV general director Konstantin Ernst and the owner of Pravda.Ru, Vadim Gorshenin, from entering Ukraine until 2018.
These individuals “pose real or potential threats to the national interests, national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine” or “facilitate terrorist activity,” according to a press release by the Presidential Administration. The press release described the two as “propagandists.”
Poroshenko said at a press conference on June 3 that the ban is meant to fight against Kremlin propaganda. “If you are talking about Russian journalists, some of them are doing criminal things. And that would [require] a special, separate investigation,” Poroshenko said.
However, the ban has been widely condemned by Western organizations. The Committee for the Protection of Journalists issued a statement urging Ukraine to “resist the urge to fight propaganda with censorship.” Human Rights Watch issued a similar demand.
The ban comes at a time when Ukraine is trying to decide how to manage negative wartime press, leading to decrees that seem contradictory: Also on May 27, Poroshenko issued another decree that lifted sanctions on 29 foreign journalists, including several Russian journalists reporting abroad in countries like Poland, Slovakia, and Turkey.
At the press conference, Poroshenko publicly condemned a leak by the Myrotvorets (“Peacemaker”) website, which revealed the names and personal information of journalists accredited with Kremlin-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. But he had reservations.
“Unfortunately, I have information that some of these journalists prepare negative comments or negative articles about Ukraine. I kindly ask you – please don’t do that,” Poroshenko said. Though he was not ready to sanction journalists who publish “negative articles” about Ukraine, his disapproval was clear.
Poroshenko defended the government for not shutting down the website. “We have a very limited instrument to react and to close this publication,” he said. Still, he said he thought the leak had been “a very big mistake.” The Head of the Security Services in Ukraine also condemned the leak at a press conference on June 3.
But early reactions from some members of parliament and the government were supportive of the leak. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov wrote a Facebook post that, if not supporting the leak outright, was not critical of it. “War is war,” he wrote on Facebook on May 13.
Meanwhile, U.S. journalists have criticized the Ukrainian government for not cracking down hard enough on the Myrotvorets leak. In an op-ed for the New York Times, freelancer Ian Bateson wrote that by supporting the leak, members of the Ukrainian parliament had declared a war on journalism.
“The website and its supporters in government are suggesting that journalists can be divided into two camps: those who support the state and those who are against it, with the implication that journalists who criticize the government should be silenced,” Bateson wrote.
The Russian journalists are not the only ones to be banned from entering Ukraine in recent weeks. Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, was banned from the country on May 26 for publicly supporting Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea.
“This is obviously excessive,” said Nina Ognianova, the Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator at the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, of the decree banning the 17 journalists. “We understand that Ukraine has to deal with Russian propaganda, but they should not fight it with censorship.”
