Former Editor Sues Editorial Board

Horobets maintains he was illegally fired from his post of Editor-in-Chief during his seven months being kept in criminal investigatory detention and demands reinstatement.

The court postponed consideration of his claim arguing that it had been addressed incorrectly. The court says that in addition to the Pravda Ukrayiny editorial board and editor-in-chief, the main journalistic organization of the paper should also be named a defendant.

”My dismissal was absolutely illegal,” Horobets told the Center for Journalistic Research. ”If the judges observed law, I would automatically be reinstated as editor-in-chief. Instead, the court is dragging out consideration of my case for made-up reasons.”

The Pravda Ukrayiny editorial staff refused to comment on the reasons for Horobets' dismissal. At the same time, he asserts that the authorities are prepared to resort to various methods to bar his return as editor.

”They phoned me several times, threatening, and ‘advised' me not to show up in court. My lawyer warned me that this time they are going to charge me with tax evasion (Criminal Code Article 182 Clause 2). Excuse me, but what kind, if I got my last pay on September 10, 1998?” says Horobets.

The pressure by the authorities on Pravda Ukrayiny , which earlier had supported Pavlo Lazarenko, began after the newspaper had become highly critical of the executive and Leonid Kuchma. After January 26, 1998, when the newspaper published the names of the senior officials, including those in the President's entourage, who illegally received apartments in Kyiv, Mr. Horobets was arrested on charges of attempted rape of an employee. He was released from custody last summer.

Now, Horobets says, Pravda Ukrayiny is controlled by the party of power, while the pressrun has dropped fifty times, from 600,000 copies to 12,000.