“Let them see the results of their work”

“Who will answer for the beating of journalists?” Several dozen media people put this question to the Party of Regions MPs, including Volodymyr Oliinyk, Vadym Kolesnichenko, Olena Bondarenko, Oleksandr Yefremov, and others during a special session of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The journalists were holding the photographs of their bloodstained colleagues to show the people’s deputies the striking “result of their work.” Some of the injured came to parliament from the Hrushevsky St. barricades. The MPs were mostly trying to avoid looking at the beaten faces and answering – they preferred to hide in the session hall. Oleksandr Yefremov, the Party of Regions faction leader, had to respond to this improvised action, when journalists showed him these terrible pictures at his press conference. “The people who did this [the beating of journalists. – Ed.] must be brought to justice… Investigatory bodies are studying these facts and, as far as I know, have instituted criminal proceedings. I personally apologize because I think it is inadmissible to do such things in our state,” Mr. Yefremov said.

  But the journalists said it was not enough to apologize. The government must punish the guilty, for not a single law enforcer has been punished either after the December 1 events near the Presidential Administration or after the Hrushevsky St. clashes, when over a hundred media people suffered.

  “This was a spontaneous action,” journalist Svitlana OSTAPA says to The Day. “Journalists, mostly TV people, have self-organized in social networking sites and decided to act fast. Parliamentary correspondents showed the photographs of beaten-up journalists, first of all, to Party of Regions MPs, particularly, Volodymyr Oliinyk and Vadym Kolesnichenko, who had drawn up the notorious ‘January 16 laws,’ as well as Olena Bondarenko and Oleksandr Yefremov. We surely put them to shame. When some well-known journalists appeared on TV screens and asked ‘How can you sleep after all this?’ I think their hearts sank a little. The Regionnaires promised that, even in spite of the law on amnesty, those who beat up journalists and hindered their professional activity would be punished. Whenever we used to tell interior ministry officials that they did not protect journalists during mass-scale disturbances, they always reproached us that journalists had no identification and policemen did not know that they saw media people. But this time journalists were properly dressed and showed their ID cards, only to hear foul language and such phrases as ‘We will show you the freedom of speech’ in reply. They beat us deliberately. I don’t think it is the last action of this kind. Let them see the results of their work.”