You're reading: Ukraine’s ban of foreign journalists ignites international ire

Prominent foreign journalists briefly found themselves in the company of Kremlin cheerleader and Chechen strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov in Ukraine’s recently released list of sanctioned individuals.

The move ignited such a furor that President Petro Poroshenko
immediately reversed the decision.

The nearly 400 sanctioned individuals, announced on Sept. 16 by the
presidential administration, face travel and financial restrictions for one
year. Those on the list were said to represent an “actual or potential
threat to national interests, national security, sovereignty and territorial
integrity of Ukraine,” according to the decree.

While figures like Kadyrov and separatist leaders Denis Pushilin and
Igor Plotnitsky are justifiably on the list along with top Russian officials,
several well-respected foreign journalists were inexplicably singled out.

Many expressed shock and anger that BBC journalists Emma Wells, Steven
Rosenberg and Anton Chicherov were categorized as a threat to Ukraine’s
national security – especially considering that Rosenberg had been attacked in
Russia last year for investigating the deaths of Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian authorities quickly switched to damage-control mode.

Ukraine’s Minister of Information Policy Yuriy Stets issued a statement
acknowledging that the list “needs changes” and saying a working group had been
set up to rectify the situation by repealing sanctions against certain
journalists.

Poroshenko immediately ordered the National Security and Defense Council,
which had compiled the list, to remove the names of certain journalists,
according to presidential spokesman Svyatoslav Tsegolko.

The backpedaling came after Andrew Roy,
the BBC’s foreign editor, called the ban a “shameful attack on media freedom,”
saying the sanctions are “completely inappropriate and inexplicable measures to
take against BBC journalists who are reporting the situation in Ukraine
impartially and objectively, and we call on the Ukrainian government to remove
their names from this list immediately.”

The blacklist also included two prominent
Spanish journalists, Antonio Jose Rodriguez Pampliega and Ángel Sastre of
newspaper El Pais. Neither could be reached for comment on the matter, as both
went missing in July while reporting in Syria.

Within an hour after Poroshenko’s order, the
National Security and Defense Council announced that the BBC reporters, as well
as the El Pais reporters and a reporter for German newspaper Die Zeit, would be
taken off the list.

The decision was made “considering the public
response and strategic importance of relations with the European Union,” the
council said in a statement.

While the controversial bans were quickly
repealed, no explanation was given for how the decision was made to begin with.

Those seeking an explanation were left in the
dark, and the presidential administration initially deferred inquiries to the
Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU.

The SBU, however, seemed just as oblivious to
the reasons for the bans as everyone else.

SBU spokeswoman Olena Hiklianska asked for time
to “sort out the situation” and familiarize herself with the details when
initially contacted for comment by the Kyiv Post.

The Independent Media Trade Union of Ukraine
together with the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine sent an open letter
to Poroshenko demanding an explanation.

“Society must know whether this is just
negligence and a mistake in the bureaucratic system of information transfer
between officials, or a conscious government policy against ‘inconvenient’
international media representatives,” the letter read.

Apart from reporters from the BBC and El Pais,
journalists from a number of other EU countries were also sanctioned.
Some
of the journalists who wound up on the list expressed confusion when learning
of the news.

Andrei Babin, a reporter from the Estonian
Russian-language newspaper Day After Day, wasn’t sure what exactly got him
banned.

“I adore Ukraine and consider myself one of
the most tolerant people in the world. Yes, if I am not mistaken, I published
an article about the situation in Ukraine last year. I criticized the Ukrainian
authorities in it. But criticism is part of a journalist’s job,” Babin said in
an interview with the Estonian public broadcasting service.

Marianna Tarasenko, another Estonian reporter
who was sanctioned, said she stood “for the sovereignty and the territorial
integrity of every country, including Ukraine. Therefore, the formulation next
to my last name looks weird,” she told the service.

Lativan Public Broadcasting LSM.LV reported
that three Latvian names on the list were actually pen names.

Human rights activists were also quick to
sound the alarm. Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch said she didn’t belive
the news at first. “I thought it was a bad joke or simply a fake…I personally
know the BBC journalists in question – they are impeccable media professionals
and provided top-notch reporting from the conflict zone,” Lokshina said.
“This is no way to fight the information war. They’re only providing
fodder to the Kremlin-controlled press.”

Media expert Peter Pomeranzev of the
London-based think tank the Legatum Institute expressed anger. “I think Ukraine
just lost a big battle in the war that matters most: the one for public
opinion,” he told the Kyiv Post.

After speaking publicly in Kyiv recently about
the information war, he said he couldn’t believe the move came after he’d
“spent last week talking about public diplomacy and how you need to be
asymmetric in the info war.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists said it
“deplores” Ukraine’s decision to ban 41 international journalists and bloggers.

“We are dismayed by President Poroshenko’s
actions, including a ban on dozens of international media covering
Ukraine,” CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova
said in a statement. “While the
government may not like or agree with the coverage, labeling journalists a
potential threat to national security is not an appropriate response. In fact,
this sweeping decree undermines Ukraine’s interests by blocking vital news and
information that informs the global public about the country’s political
crisis.”

The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media
Dunja Mijatović also slammed the move.

“I fully respect governments’ legitimate right
to fight terrorism and to protect their national security and their citizens,”
Mijatović said in a written statement. “But introducing over-broad restrictions
that curb free movement of journalists is not the way to ensure security.”

Staff
writer Allison Quinn can be reached at
[email protected]. Staff writer Alyona Zhuk can
be reached at
[email protected]