Are Opposition Media Being “Forgiven” their Opposition?

Both domestic and foreign observers have evaluated the course of Ukraine’s presidential campaign as undemocratic. Thus OSCE representatives, in addition to remarking on the involvement of state bodies in the election, have on many occasions expressed their dissatisfaction with the virtual monopolization of the mass media for the benefit of one candidate, and the pressure on those who had dared to voice their support for anybody else. The Day has written more than once on this subject. The disobedient were subjected to inspections by executive bodies, tax, fire prevention, and sanitary authorities, etc., and their employees were repeatedly threatened.

Among those we have written about were Chornomorska TRK (Crimea), Symon Television Company (Kharkiv), and STB (Kyiv). Two weeks after the elections The Day made it a point to find out: what is the further destiny of those media outlets? Are they still being persecuted? Were the demands by the state bodies reasonable, or perhaps after the elections they do not even conceal that such demands served only as an election campaign vehicle? Can we hope that being content with victory, the President’s team will take certain steps toward democratization of their relations with the mass media?

Lev KOKSHAROV, General Producer, Symon Television Company (Kharkiv):

“The pressure on us has weakened, but we haven’t yet recovered after the elections. ( The Day wrote that Symon was checked scores of times, in the hotel where Symon is based a platoon with automatic weapons went through looking for “unregistered residents,” and anchorman Zurab Alasaniya was threatened more than once. —Author ). The civil court that was supposed to consider the protest filed by Symon against Tax Inspectorate’s illegal withdrawal of funds from Symon’s bank current account, deferred the hearing because the Tax Inspectorate was not ready for the trial(!). As for our anchorman Zurab Alasaniya, the threats directed against him seem to have stopped.”

Yuri IVANCHENKO, Director, Channel-5 Cooperative (Nikopol):

“On Friday November 26, a rally was held in Nikopol to support our Channel-5 Cooperative which embraces the Channel-5 Television Company, a radio station of the same name, and Nikopolskiye Izvestiya newspaper. Over one thousand persons participated in the rally. On the eve of the November 14 elections, the printing enterprise, which used to publish Nikopolskiye Izvestiya, refused to print the newspaper. So did all the others. Two issues did not appear. And last Thursday, the newspaper was not delivered to subscribers again: a considerable portion of the pressrun had disappeared. On November 5 to 10, before the presidential runoff, we were deprived of our television transmitters, and our antenna equipment was destroyed. We photographed the whole process of confiscation, and published the photos in our paper, and in search of justice we also have turned to the executive bodies and police, but they pretend that nothing ever happened. (Even lawmakers who came to us for the rally could not meet either the police administration, representatives of the SBU, or of the State Telecommunications Inspectorate). It was precisely the Nikopolskiye Izvestiya extra featuring the assault on Channel-5 that many subscribers did not receive.

“Our television company and radio station are now in a complete disorder. Currently we use Internet to present all the information about what has happened.”

Serhiy SHOLOKH, General Director, Kontinent Radio (Kyiv):

“Before the elections, there were threats directed against me and the radio station, as The Day reported. Our bank account was blocked so that we cannot pay for transmitter operation. I received threats by telephone, and once they attempted to set up a car accident. After the elections everything has been quiet so far. There is some information though that the Tax Administration was instructed to inspect all television and radio companies in the first months of the new year. I do not rule out that special attention will be paid to those companies that showed independence during the election campaign. Hopefully, everything will be OK with us. Heorhy Honhadze, who conducted First Round with Heorhy Honhadze author’s program, and then Second Round..., was appointed director of Kontinent’s Information Department and is now preparing new projects styled as independent journalism.”

Tetiana KRASIKOVA, new president of Chornomorska TRK (the Crimea) , says the company can now broadcast at the full force. Its transmitters were shut off in June by order of the Frequency Supervision Committee and were turned on four days before the runoff. It should be mentioned that as far back as October, Kuchma made public statements that he personally had given instructions to address this company problems and turn on its transmitters.

Journalists Artem Petrenko and Ivanna Kobernyk, who quit STB after it changed its political orientation, work now for other media outlets. Journalists who have stayed with STB assert that the pressure on them, so much written and spoken about at the height of the presidential campaign (and exerted, primarily, by Serhiy Kutsenko who became an STB Administrative Board member), is now practically invisible.

Hence, the media which in one way or another were injured during the election struggle because of their opposition stance, have by now resumed their normal activity. However, on the other hand, we should point to one more fact: Chairman of the Ukrainian Union of Journalists Ihor Lubchenko has more than once filed demands with both the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Public Prosecutor’s Office that an investigation be conducted into the numerous cases of printing and replicating false issues of such newspapers as Silski visti, Antena (Cherkasy) and others, and publication of insulting leaflets, etc. According to Ukrposhta, Soyuzdruk and the Presa State Enterprise, “The postmen did not deliver, and Presa kiosks network did not distribute these newspapers’ issues.” The law enforcement officials did not register such cases either, no one has been arrested, and based on “a lack of objective information have declined to open criminal cases.” Incidentally, the trial of Oleh Lyashko, the Editor-in-Chief of scandalous paper Politika ended the Friday before the last, but sentence was not pronounced. Sentencing was postponed to December 10.

Perhaps the main conclusion about the new and old style of the press and power relations can be made after tax authorities sum up the results of the current year, and it will become clear how seriously the executive has taken its own statements about its new attitude toward the mass media.