You're reading: Ukrainian journalists still not guaranteed justice under new regime

Since the fall of President Viktor Yanukovych, the media environment in Ukraine has notably improved. Freedom House reported “profound changes in the media environment” and the country’s press freedom status went from "Not Free" in 2014 to "Partly Free" in 2015. But despite these changes, journalists in Ukraine still feel the judicial system fails to protect them.

On Dec. 31, military prosecutors closed a case against the State Security Service (SBU) employees who attacked the journalists of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, known in Ukraine as Radio Svoboda, the media organization reported on Jan. 6.

The case was initiated after members of the security forces attacked a crew of journalists on Oct. 2 while they attempted to shoot an episode of Schemes, a Radio Svoboda television program which investigates corruption, outside the Kyiv headquarters of the SBU.

The incident occurred when the journalists were filming cars owned by SBU employees as part of a program about the discrepancy between SBU salaries and their vehicles.

Despite the fact that the crew identified themselves as journalists and showed their credentials, SBU officers smashed the camera and forcibly detained cameraman Kyryll Lazarevych and reporter Mykhailo Tkach for half an hour.

Even though the incident was caught on SBU surveillance cameras and presented in court, the prosecutors said they were closing the case because of “the absence of any criminal violations committed by the security service staff.”

The surveillance video shows SBU employees detaining journalists who were shooting outside the Kyiv headquarters of SBU on Oct. 2.

Ukraine’s Criminal Code imposes a punishment of up to three years of jail time for obstructing a journalist’s work. However, the prosecutors said there was no obstruction in the actions of the SBU.

“Officers of the Security Service of Ukraine … did not realize that their actions interfered with the lawful professional activities of the journalists and they did not intend to damage the camcorder,” read the decision of the Military Prosecutor’s Office.

Media lawyer Vera Krat of the Institute of Regional Press Development told Radio Liberty that she considers the ruling illegal:

“The investigation found that (the SBU officers) applied physical force and did not specify the grounds for their actions…. Moreover, the journalists repeatedly identified themselves,” she said.

After the attack, SBU sent Radio Svoboda an official letter warning the media against releasing the program about the vehicles that belong to the SBU employees, saying that the footage could contain information about the SBU officers involved in operations in eastern Ukraine. The program was released anyway.

The program about the expensive cars of SBU employees, during producing which the journalists were detained by SBU.

The staff of Radio Svoboda is unhappy about the prosecutors’ decision and say there will be an appeal.

“In short, Anatoliy Matios (the head military prosecutor overseeing the case) gave a New Year gift for (Head of SBU Vasyl) Grytsak by closing the case,” the editor of the investigative projects at Radio Svoboda, Katya Gorchinskaya wrote on her Facebook page on Jan. 6.

Earlier, Grytsak had requested the attack to be cut from the footage, according to Radio Liberty.

This was shortly followed by news on Jan. 6 that the Kyiv Court of Appeal upheld the life sentence passed on former police general Oleksiy Pukach for the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze.

Gongadze disappeared on Sept. 16, 2000 in Kyiv and his beheaded torso was later discovered in woods in the Kyiv oblast. Secret recordings later released by the bodyguard of then president Leonid Kuchma from the presidential office implicated the president, the ex-head of the presidential administration, Volodymyr Lytvyn, and the ex-interior minister, Yuriy Kravchenko, in the murder.

The lawyer for Gongadze’s relatives, Valentyna Telychenko, told Radio Liberty she agreed with the court’s latest verdict: “Pukach is the organizer and executor of the murder of Georgiy Gongadze.”

Though Pukach is thought to have organized the murder, the investigation never discovered and punished those who ordered it.

Investigators concluded that Pukach had carried out the murder on orders from Kravchenko, who was found dead shortly before his planned interrogation in Gongadze case in 2005. It was officially determined as suicide. But Pukach insisted during the trial that Kuchma and Lytvyn are also responsible.

“Kuchma and Lytvyn should be in prison with me,” said Pukach in an appeal hearing on Jan. 29, 2013.

Telychenko also told Ukrainska Pravda at the time that Pukach’s evidence against Lytvyn and Kuchma should be used in the investigation into who ordered the killing.

In 2011, under former president Viktor Yanukovych proceedings were brought against Kuchma. However, it soon became clear that the investigation was just for show. Soon after proceedings were initiated the Constitutional Court ruled that that evidence collected illegally can’t serve as the grounds for criminal charges. This eliminated the recordings from the president’s office and therefore, the trial.

Kyiv Post staff writer Isobel Koshiw can be reached at [email protected]