Ukraine

Ukrainian authorities should immediately release a journalist apparently forcibly disappeared since May 10, 2014 by government military forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, Human Rights Watch said today. Since the arrest of Artyom Larionov, a videographer from Donetsk working for anti-Kiev forces, the government has provided no information as to his fate or whereabouts. The authorities...

The International Press Institute (IPI) Tuesday called on all parties in Ukraine to release detained journalists and to take steps to ensure journalists’ safety in advance of presidential elections scheduled for May 25. “The degree to which pro-Russian separatists have detained and attacked journalists in Ukraine has been shocking, but the pattern of detentions by pro-government forces that we...

A brutal attack has been carried out on an editor in Ukraine, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Two unidentified assailants approached Yevgeny Polozhy, editor-in-chief of the independent news website Panorama, on Monday night outside his apartment in the northeastern city of Sumy, according to a local press freedom group and news reports citing the editor's wife. The...

Local and international journalists covering the volatile situation in eastern Ukraine have been harassed, attacked, detained, and had their equipment seized, according to news reports and regional press freedom groups. In the past week, armed men stormed government buildings, raided police stations, and built highway checkpoints in several towns in the eastern regions of Kharkiv, Donetsk, and...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has expressed concern over reports that Ukrainian border guards have denied entry to the country to several Russian journalists over the past few days. Reports say that journalists with the newly reshuffled RIA Novosti news agency, TV channels Rossiya and Russia Today, the business daily Kommersant, and Forbes-Russia magazine have all been turned down at the...

At least three news outlets and two journalists have been attacked and harassed in the past three days in eastern Ukraine, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting news reports and press freedom groups. Tensions have been on the rise in eastern Ukraine following Russia's annexation of Crimea in March, and a statement on Friday last by ousted president Viktor Yanukovych, who...

Oleksandr Panteleymonov, acting CEO of the National Ukrainian Television Company (NTKU), was attacked on the evening of March 18, when around 20 people led by parliamentary members of the nationalist Svoboda party stormed into his office, insulted and beat him, and forced him to sign a resignation letter. “A full and impartial investigation must be carried out to ensure that this kind of...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) have brought together the representatives of their Ukrainian affiliates, Independent Media Trade Union of Ukraine (IMTUU) and the National Union of the Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), and their Russian affiliates, the Russian Union of Journalists (RUJ), for a roundtable meeting in Brussels where they...

The International Press Institute (IPI) has called for an end to violence, harassment, intimidation and other pressure on journalists and media outlets in Ukraine. IPI Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie, in an open letter to authorities in Crimea, urged them to bring to justice those responsible for a number of recent incidents in the region and to end efforts to block media outlets from...

Journalists covering the ongoing crisis in the southern Ukrainian autonomous republic of Crimea continue to be detained, harassed, and obstructed, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on all sides of the crisis to allow journalists to report freely on the events in Crimea and Ukraine. Attacks on local and international journalists in Crimea have been on the...