Two days after President Leonid Kuchma signed a decree designed to improve freedom of press in Ukraine, editors of several regional newspapers claimed that they were being stifled.
Yury Lutsenko, editor of opposition newspaper Grani, appealed to the Committee on Culture and Education of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Dec. 11 on behalf of editors of 10 Ukrainian newspapers that complained about oppression.
“In the last 10 days, independent media in Ukraine have been put under severe pressure. Authorities have made every effort to halt the distribution of newspapers that dared to publish information about possible involvement of high-ranked state officials in the disappearance of independent journalist Georgy Gongadze,” the statement said.
The appeal was signed by representatives from 10 newspapers covering regions of Ukraine, with a total circulation of around 1 million.
Slovo Veterana in Pavlograd was published with blank pages. Those pages were were supposed to contain transcripts of a tape that allegedly contained incriminating statements by Kuchma. But the pages were stripped of copy before the paper was distributed. The director of the printing house said he was ordered to do so by the local department of the state security service (SBU).
Three papers – Dialog in Rivne, Spravedlyvist in Kherson and Strila in Vinnytsa – weren’t published for 10 days at the beginning of this month because they were rejected by all printing houses in their regions. According to the appeal distribution of Trudova Poltavshchyna in Poltava, Zirka Nadiyi in Zhytomyr and Zerkalo Zaporozhya in Zaporizhya was delayed for several days because of pressure local officials made on printing houses. The printing house owned by Kharkiv’s Prospekt Pravdy was closed by the local fire department for code violations.
Several newspapers reported that police searched their offices and the editors were followed. Editors said they doubted that Kuchma was sincere when he stated in a televised speech on UT-1 on Dec. 6 that he “supports and has always supported freedom of press and is against any pressure on mass media.”
On Dec. 9, Kuchma signed a decree requiring all regional authorities to support mass media, provide information and react on critical materials that are published.
Leonid Derkach, head of the state security service (SBU), in a speech before parliament on Dec. 12 denied that the SBU has been exerting pressure on opposition media or interfering in the publishing process.
“We have never had any kind of censorship and we won’t ever have it,” Derkach said.
