Amid the scandals involving TVi television channel, whose director is accused of tax evasion, and LB.ua, a popular online publication facing an invasion of privacy charge, Ukraine’s journalists are about to face yet more unwelcome attacks designed to muzzle them.
If legislation proposed by Vitaliy Zhuravsky, a member of the ruling Party of Regions becomes law, libel will become a criminal offense punished by fines of up to Hr 85,000 ($10,625), or, in extreme cases, up to five years in prison.
Parliament should not pass this bill. If it does, President Viktor Yanukovych should veto the legislation which is seen as a blow to free speech and democracy.
Libel was decriminalized in 2001 and is not even considered an administrative offense. All allegations of libel are considered on a case-by-case basis. The plaintiffs usually demand a retraction and modest financial damages for publishing information they consider wrong. Journalists at least have some opportunity to protect themselves.
Yet the current status quo does not sit well with Zhuravsky. He explained his initiative by simply saying that it will make people “think before talking.” That’s always good advice. But all this talk about intelligent discourse and protecting people’s dignity is mere smoke and mirrors.
What lies at the heart of this bill is yet another attempt by the ruling Party of Regions to silence free speech in the administration’s steady march towards authoritarianism.
If the chilling idea becomes law, it would likely extinguish the ability of the public – and journalists – to investigate and expose many legitimately public issues, such as those involving corruption and government spending.
Moreover, Ukraine’s court system is so broken that it would not be hard to find pliant judges to declare that a newspaper article has led to “serious health problems” of a well-connected plaintiff, triggering a possible five-year prison term for the journalist.
This is just more “me-too” legislation of the wrong kind. Politicians in Russia, already an entrenched authoritarian state under Vladimir Putin, criminalized libel on July 13.
In the case of Zhuravsky’s bill, he is the one who should do more thinking before he talks, and withdraw his free-speech killing legislation.
