You're reading: Shuster’s political show cut off air, raising free-speech concerns once more

Ukraine's top political talk show Shuster Live was cut off the air on Ukraine's leading Channel 1+1 right before the program was supposed to start.

The controversial decision of
the channel’s administration has received a strident backlash from Savic
Shuster, the show’s host, who compared the situation to late November 2013,
when his show was canceled during President Viktor Yanukovych’s authoritative
rule that ended on Feb. 22, 2014, with the EuroMaidan Revolution.

“This is an insult against the
people, to say the least,” Shuster said. “I think this is an agreement between
the owner (oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky) of Channel 1+1 and the president’s administration.
I don’t know on what grounds and, more so, for what reasons.”

The Kyiv Post is still waiting for a response from the president’s spokesperson.

Instead of the show, Channel
1+1 showed Zimniy Vals (Winter Waltz), a Russian melodrama TV series.

“This is like Swan Lake in
1991,” Shuster said, reminding of the attempt of censorship control during the
collapse of the Soviet Union, where the Soviet Communist Party wanted to take
one last chance of restoring authoritarian control. The ballet Swan Lake was
shown on television instead of the heated events in Moscow.

The last time Shuster Live was
cut off air was back in November 2013 when President Petro Poroshenko, then a
member of parliament, and other opposition leaders were being blocked to the
show by Party of Regions politicians. The show was broadcast on Inter channel,
which abruptly switched to a Russian TV series.

“I understand that, after
Vilnius on Nov. 29, when the students were at Maidan, this studio was turned
off; but then it was (channel) Inter,” Shuster said, pointing out that Inter
had “close” relations with Yanukovych. “But right now the owner of the channel
isn’t close to the president.”

On Sept. 18 Channel 1+1
released a press statement on their website saying that the show will not be
broadcast because of the highly “intense” and “politicized” events in the
country.

“The channel is not ready to
heat it up even more,” channel 1+1 wrote. “We think that during next week
politicians will be able to calm down… and will come back to discuss the
question of tariff corruption, especially considering that the topic will be no
less relevant.”

Shuster Live, however, was
broadcast at
www.3s.tv, the show’s official website, and then, soon after
being canceled on Channel 1+1, on channel 112.

During the show Shuster
received a letter from Oleksandr Tkachenko, the general director of Channel
1+1, mentioning that Sushter Live does not have the right to broadcast the show
on another channel, since it was not in the license agreement.

“We did not have in our
agreement that you could broadcast us as you wish, and like some kind of trash,
throw us from left to right,” Shuster replied. “Tkachenko, you of course are a
colleague journalist but I am not your slave, I am not some sort of shit in
your hands. Look into the mirror more often – maybe you will see more truth
there.”

Shuster Live shortly
afterwards showed an older video where Poroshenko was interviewed saying that
he is a strong supporter of free speech. “I won’t necessarily like everything
that is being said during the program but I will give my life so that it would
exist,” Poroshenko said.

But Shuster refuted the
statement. “He will not give his life for this program. This is a fact, because
we were supposed to be on channel 1+1.”

Oleh Lyashko, leader of the
Radical Party which recently went into opposition, was one of the guests at the
show.

Lyashko believes that the
channel was pressured by the president’s administration because of his presence
at the show. Lyashko was planning to defend Ihor Mosiychuk, a Radical Party
member who was controversially stripped of immunity and arrested on Sept. 17
during a parliament session.

He said that the decision to
cancel the program was a result of a deal between Poroshenko and Kolomoiskiy.

“An oligarch will go to the
president, find an agreement, the president will give a command, and the
oligarch closes down the program,” Lyashko said.

Member of Parliament Serhiy
Leshchenko believes that it was an order from the “top” as well, either from
the president’s administration or the Cabinet of Ministers.

This means that oligarch
Kolomoiskiy “started an active phase of negotiations with the government,”
Leshchenko wrote on his Facebook page.

But Yuriy Butusov, the chief
editor of Censor.net, an online media source, doubts that Poroshenko is involved
directly in the decision.

“This is the responsibility,
first and foremost, of the channel’s owner Kolomoiskiy, certainly this was his
command,” Butusov said.

“This does not have anything
in common with free speech,” Butusov added.

Kyiv Post staff writer Ilya Timtchenko can be reached
at
[email protected].