A dozen Ukrainian journalists stood up and raised anti-censorship banners when President Viktor Yanukovich hailed his country's march to media freedom at the World Newspaper Congress in Kyiv on Monday, Sept. 3.
“Ukraine has made its way, without exaggeration, from total
censorship to an open society,” Yanukovich told the conference
as his security guards ripped banners saying “Stop censorship”
from protesters’ hands.
Yanukovich did not react to the silent protest.
Ukrainian opposition and Western rights watchdogs have
accused Yanukovich of cracking down on media freedom after
coming to power in the former Soviet republic in early 2010.
In July, three months before the October parliamentary
election, tax police raided the office of TVi, a television
station often critical of the government.
Although a tax evasion case against TVi’s chief executive
has since been dropped, the station says local cable companies
are either dropping it or moving it to more expensive packages,
cutting the station’s viewer base.
Yanukovich said the alleged lack of media freedom in his
country was due to ignorance and misinformation. “I think this
is mostly due to the lack of objective information on the real
state of affairs,” he told the conference.
After winning the February 2010 presidential election,
Yanukovich quickly consolidated power by forging a majority
coalition in parliament and installing allies in key positions.
Last October, a local court sentenced his arch-rival – and
defeated presidential contender – Yulia Tymoshenko to seven
years in prison for abuse of office, after a trial criticised by
the West as an example of selective justice.
Despite calls by the European Union for the release of
Tymoshenko, a former prime minister, Yanukovich refused to
intervene, and analysts say this may affect the EU judgment on
the fairness of Ukraine’s Oct. 28 parliamentary poll.
Tymoshenko appealed to Western powers on Monday to step up
measures to isolate Yanukovich. “(European politicians) should
stop trying to urge Yanukovich to become a democrat,” she said
in an interview in the Polish edition of Newsweek magazine.
“They should understand that admonishing a dictator will not
change him. It’s like urging a cannibal to become a vegetarian.”
Tymoshenko alleged that Yanukovich and his allies planned to
rig the legislative election to cancel out all opposition. She
said Ukraine’s democracy and its status as a part of the
European family were at stake.
