Prosecutors’ efforts to obtain access to the emails of Ukrainian journalist Ivan Verstyuk have drawn international condemnation, with several foreign organizations lambasting the move.
Kyiv’s Pechersk Court on Feb. 4 gave the Prosecutor General’s Office permission to access the emails of Verstyuk, a journalist at the Novoye Vremya magazine.
“We’re disappointed by the Pechersk District Court’s decision to aggressively pursue a journalist’s records,” the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine said on Feb. 20. “Media plays a critical role in investigating corruption and strengthening Ukrainian democracy. Ukrainian officials should welcome independent journalism, not stifle it.”
On the same day, Harlem Desir, the representative on the freedom of the media at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, urged Ukrainian authorities to respect journalists’ right not to disclose their sources.
The Committee to Protect Journalists on Feb. 19 also condemned the authorities’ efforts to get access to Verstyuk’s emails.
“Prosecutors in Ukraine should be investigating the alleged corruption revealed by Novoye Vremya’s reporting, not pressuring the outlet and its reporter Ivan Verstyuk to reveal their sources,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna. “The protection of sources is a fundamental tenet of newsgathering, and we call on prosecutors to drop this case immediately.”
France-based Reporters Without Borders said on Feb. 18 that “it is becoming a habit to trample on the protection of journalistic sources in Ukraine.”
“It is not ok,” the organization said. “Time to change course!”
Prosecutors want to see Verstyuk’s conversations because in 2016 Novoye Vremya published a story by him about a former deputy general prosecutor of Kyiv Oblast, Alexander Korniyets. Entitled “Brilliant Daughter,” the story reveals how Korniyets, earning only $7,600 a year, managed to pay 120,000 pounds a year for his daughter to study at a school in the United Kingdom.
Although Korniyets was fired right away, prosecutors are still investigating his case, and they claim Verstyuk’s story, and his source in particular, breached the confidentiality of this investigation. The journalist based his story on a report by the British National Crime Agency. The report had been sent exclusively to the Prosecutor General’s Office, but someone there leaked it to the journalist.
If Verstyuk does not give up his email conversations, the Prosecutor General’s Office can search Novoye Vremya’s newsroom, the Pechersk Court said. The confidentiality of sources is protected by the law, however.
Meanwhile, last year the Prosecutor General’s Office also obtained court warrants to access the cell phone data of another Novoye Vremya journalist, Kristina Berdynskykh, and Natalie Sedletska, the chief editor of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Schemes investigative television show. The rulings also triggered strong criticism by Ukrainian civic activists, journalists and Western officials.
Suspilne Telebachennya (Public Television), on which Sedletska’s Schemes show is aired, has also experienced problems.
In January the channel’s board fired its CEO Zurab Alasania, sparking concerns about censorship ahead of the March 31 presidential election as he is seen by many as the guardian of the station’s editorial independence.
In December, Sedletska said that her sources warned her that Suspilne’s supervisory board was about to consider stopping the broadcasting of the Schemes and Nashi Hroshi investigative journalism shows, which have exposed Ukrainian top officials.
