A reporter for 1+1’ s Hroshi (money) investigative program was beaten by two unidentified men near his home in Kyiv’s Sviatoshyn neighborhood late on Sept. 26. The reporter, Dmytro Volkov, as well as the head of the channel’s investigative journalism department, Mykola Shylenko, said the beating was connected to his work.
Volkov had been investigating alleged
illegal land distribution in Vyshgorod, a district north of Kyiv. When asked
whether the attack was connected to his investigation, Volkov said, “yes, it is
exactly that.”
Volkov, 35, added that one of his
assailants said: “If you dig into this (Vyshgorod land) topic, we’ll rip off
your head.”
Volkov said he was followed home after
work late on Sept. 26 where he was met by two males. One male blocked his path,
according to Volkov, and said: “You’ll never come back to Vyshgorod,” after
which he was punched in the head. One hour elapsed before Volkov regained consciousness, said Zhan Novoseltsev, Volkov’s colleague at the Hroshi program, through his Facebook page. He added that no one came to his aid and it was the bites of ants that had woken him.
Then Volkov said he
called his colleagues. They in turn called the police who subsequently filed a report.
Volkov said he sustained a concussion, a
broken jaw and multiple bruises. He is currently in a Kyiv hospital.
Volkov’s boss, Shylenko said through
1+1’s press service that the people that the program is investigating are
trying to intimidate them.
“We believe…they’re trying to scare us,”
said Shylenko. “Dmytro (Volkov) really is working on uncovering illegal land
distribution near Vyshgorod. We have documents that cause problems for many
people who are part of this process. And this circle of people is so big that
it’s difficult to name who we suspect. We’re trying conduct an honest,
high-profile investigation and the attack on the journalist, which is directly
linked to his professional work is unacceptable and is an egregious incident.”
Shylenko continued: “We appeal to the police and ask them to seriously
treat this case. We
hope that the perpetrators will
be punished, no matter who ordered the attack.”
At a weapons and security show being held
in Kyiv, Internal Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko told journalists that police
have every intention of investigating the motive and circumstances of Volkov’s
beating.
“You know my position: provide any kind
of assistance to journalists,” Zkharchenko told journalists. “You’re aware that
I issued a respective order to provide assistance to every journalist,
therefore I will take this (Volkov’s) police report under my personal control
and we’ll conduct a thorough and complete investigation in this matter and
shall keep you updated.”
The Kyiv Post on Sept. 26 reported that
Kyiv journalist Iryna Fedoriv was threatened over the phone for her
investigation into an alleged land grab near Kyiv.
“You are covering the wrong topic,” an
unknown voice told her on Sept. 20. “Drop it. You are blocking the road for
people who have multi-million (dollar) interests.”
Kyiv
Post staff writers Mark Rachkevych and Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].
