Crimean Journalists Defend One More Colleague
Mykhailo Shyshliannykov, Krymskaya gazeta correspondent in Saky, and Lilia Budzhurova, chairperson of the Crimean Free Journalists Association, held a press conference in Sevastopol, playing an audio cassette with Volodymyr Shevtsov, chairman of the local council, using expletives and threatening to “punish,” “fire” and “starve to death” the correspondent, crippling him and his children. According to Mykhailo Shyshliannykov, this happened after Krymskaya gazeta carried several his articles criticizing the mayor.
The journalist filed a statement with the Crimean office of the SBU, requesting protection for himself and his family. The statement details several cases when the mayor threatened him. He insists, “The mayor never brought me to court for libel and slander, which proves that what I wrote is true.” Simultaneously, he points out in the statement, he had ignored the mayor’s threats for a long time, even when he said he would “hire someone who can damage your internal organs,” until he received a call from an anonymous person on August 16, 2001, saying that he should remember about his children, leave Shevtsov alone, and stop writing bad things about him; otherwise he would be unable to make it home one day. It was then the journalist sensed real danger.
The Crimean Free Journalists Association, the local office of the National Association of Ukrainian Journalists, and Freedom of the Press Monitoring Committee of the Crimea all issued statements expressing outrage and concern over the incident, regarding it as an act qualified by Article 171 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine as “persecution of a journalist in the line of duty, [in retaliation for] criticism.”
Volodymyr Shevtsov told journalists on the “12 Minutes” program on Crimean Television that he knew “little” about journalist Shyshliannykov and had never threatened him, that what the journalist says is purely fictitious, a provocation, and that the tape allegedly with his voice is a fake.
