Reporters Without Borders visited Ukraine from 19 to 21 July in order to accomplish the first part of an evaluation of the press freedom situation.
It met national and local media representatives, members of press freedom NGOs (Stop Censorship, Telekritika, SNUJ and IMI), ruling party and opposition parliamentarians and representatives of the prosecutor-general’s office.
At the end of this initial visit, Reporters Without Borders gave a news conference in Kiev on 21 July at which it announced its provisional findings and its recommendations to the authorities.
Reporters Without Borders will return to Ukraine in response to an invitation to meet with President Viktor Yanukovych and Anna German, the deputy chief of the presidential administration, and in order to meet with other representatives of the state media.
This report summarizes the information that Reporters Without Borders used to reach its initial conclusions.
Many journalists, free speech organisations and opposition parliamentarians are concerned to see the government becoming more and more remote and impenetrable. During a public meeting on 20 July between Reporters Without Borders and members of the Ukrainian parliament’s Committee of Enquiry into Freedom of Expression, parliamentarian Andrei Shevchenko deplored not only the increase in press freedom violations but also, and above all, the disturbing and challenging lack of reaction from the government. The data gathered by the organisation in the course of its monitoring of Ukraine confirms that there has been a significant increase in reports of press freedom violations since Viktor Yanukovych’s election as president in February.
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