Latest killing of journalist in Ukraine renews focus on media freedoms (07/15/01)

Latest killing of journalist in Ukraine renews focus on media freedoms

by Maryna Makhnonos
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, along with Ukrainian national deputies on July 11 pressed authorities for a full investigation into last week's killing of a journalist and raised further concerns about the media situation in Ukraine.

Ihor Aleksandrov, the director of a television station in the eastern Donetsk region, reportedly was attacked by two assailants wielding baseball bats on July 3 at the entrance to his office in the town of Slaviansk. He died of head injuries after three days in the hospital.

Mr. Aleksandrov was buried on July 9 in Slaviansk, where a large funeral procession of more than 5,000 people, cars and buses followed his coffin to the cemetery.

"It's symbolic that Ihor left us on the day of John the Baptist, as he also fell a victim of a killer - Herod - for telling truth," Father Heorhii said at the funeral ceremony, according to the Kievskiye Vedomosti daily.

Last week, the media freedom watchdog group Reporters Without Borders appealed to Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh to personally oversee the investigation into Mr. Aleksandrov's beating. It said violence against journalists in Ukraine was now worse than in any other European state.

On Wednesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists appealed to President Leonid Kuchma to organize a thorough investigation of the journalist's slaying. It said the case had caused concern, especially as another notorious killing, that of Internet newspaper editor Heorhii Gongadze, had not yet been solved.

Mr. Gongadze went missing in September, and his beheaded body was found on the outskirts of Kyiv a few weeks later. Opposition groups have accused President Kuchma of involvement in the Gongadze murder and have staged protests for months. Mr. Kuchma had strongly denied the accusations.

The CPJ also said there were some other facts of pressure on independent journalists in Ukraine being pressured.

The local Fakty daily said Mr. Aleksandrov was the 12th journalist killed or deceased under mysterious circumstances in recent years in Ukraine. Others include lawmaker and journalist Vadym Boiko, Crimean journalists Sviatoslav Sosnovskyi, Oleksander Motrenko and Volodymyr Ivanov, Odesa journalists Borys Derevianko, Volodymyr Bekhter and Ihor Bondar, Cherkasy reporter Ihor Hrushevskyi, Kyiv television editor Mariana Chorna, Luhansk reporter Vitaliy Shevchenko and Mr. Gongadze.

The Verkhovna Rada's Committee on freedom of Speech and Information, along with several political factions on July 11 demanded that the president, the government, the Procurator General's Office and the Interior Ministry take urgent measures to solve the Aleksandrov murder.

The Interfax news agency reported that the committee said in a statement that the killing was "a continuation of pressure on freedom of speech in Ukraine and on the professional rights of mass media workers."

"The actions against journalists and mass media are obstacles on Ukraine's way to democracy and the creation of civil society," the committee said.

Oleksander Turchynov, leader of the Batkivschyna faction, was quoted by Interfax as saying that Mr. Aleksandrov was killed for political reasons as he "told the truth about the local criminal elite and gave broadcast time the opposition."

Ivan Bokii, a member of the Left Center faction, said Mr. Aleksandrov's killing was aimed at threatening voters in somebody's preparatory steps for next year's parliamentary elections.

"We think the rule of law is a key to full-fledged democracy," the U.S. coordinator for assistance to the former Soviet Union, William Taylor, said on July 12 at a news conference in Kyiv. "A key component of the rule of law is, of course, the investigation in the Gongadze and Aleksanrov cases," he added.

Mr. Taylor said U.S. authorities are concerned about the ineffective probe into journalists' killings, as well as with slow reforms, so much so that Congress may consider reducing assistance to Ukraine next year.

Meanwhile, President Kuchma ordered a "full and transparent" investigation and said he is taking the probe under his personal control. He pledged also to keep the public informed about progress in the investigation.

The president expressed condolences to Mr. Aleksandrov's widow in a message on July 11.

"I hoped until the very last moment that death would pass by your husband," Mr. Kuchma said in a telegram to the widow. "That is why I took the news that his heart stopped as my personal loss and a loss for all Ukraine."

Mr. Aleksandrov ran the TOR television company. In 1998 a local court sentenced him to two years in prison and banned him from working as a journalist for five years after finding that he had violated laws on campaign coverage, offending a lawmaker candidate, the news reports said.

However, the journalist took his case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, and was acquitted last year.

Some media reports suggested on July 11 that Mr. Aleksandrov was killed because of a television program in which two officers spoke of alleged corruption within elite police units.

The police chief in Slaviansk appealed to local residents to provide any evidence for the investigation and offered a reward of 3,000 hrv (about $550), Kievskiye Viedomosti reported.

Natalia Zaitseva, a spokeswoman for the regional procurator's office, said prosecutors were checking "several versions linked to his professional activity," but were not yet ready to provide details.

President Kuchma cautioned against making "hasty conclusions," saying "these could lead to dangerous consequences" and benefit "Ukraine's enemies."

In a move to improve the media's safety, Mr. Kuchma told police and government officials to strengthen protection of media offices and ordered them to respond to requests from the Ukrainian media for general data about crimes against journalists over the last decade.

In addition, the president told the government to make sure laws on protecting journalists and presidential decrees aimed at improving media freedom are being fulfilled. Mr. Kuchma also ordered that hotlines be set up in Kyiv for journalists to call if they need police help.

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