Hostility on the air

President Viktor Yanukovych has said more than once that he will not allow censorship in Ukraine, for the development and extension of the freedom of the press is an irreversible process. Moreover, the president always says this so sincerely and convincingly that you tend to believe him immediately and unconditionally. And you do believe for some time, “some” being the keyword.

But a series of symptomatic reports have inundated news agency releases in the past few days alone.

To begin with, three television channels staged an hour-long strike on Saturday, August 14. TBi and 5th Channel are dissatisfied that a court stripped them of some frequencies in favor of the Inter TV channel. The Crimea-based Chornomorska TV and radio company is indignant that its property has been impounded by a court order.

Then there was a statement from the Stop Censorship journalist movement which is mulling over a nationwide strike of journalists.

And last Monday there were some reports of criminal nature. First, Vasyl Klymentiev, editor-in-chief of the local newspaper Novy stil, was murdered in Kharkiv. Second, some unknown people beat up journalist Yurii Mykhailovych in Dnipropetrovsk. Mykhailovych had planned to call a press conference and announce that the regional leadership was curtailing the freedom of speech. The journalist says he had his left knee and foot injured and, hence, is unable to walk. Besides, he was hit in the ribs and the face.

One can say, of course, that the last two incidents is just a coincidence. It may be so, but it is a very strange coincidence. We have forgotten this kind of “coincidences” in the past five years. We have forgotten that journalists may be killed, injured, or hindered from working. We have forgotten that a presidential bodyguard may twist a journalist’s arms and make him lie face down. Naturally, he was then punished and… set free. Yet many have an impression that ONE CAN DO SO NOW. We cannot help recalling Leonid Kuchma say: “All is coming back.”

The situation in Ukraine’s informational space caused an international stir thanks to Lech Walesa. The Solidarity leader forwarded a letter to President Yanukovych via the Ukrainian Embassy in Warsaw. In his letter, Poland’s former president expresses concern over “a worsening situation with the freedom of speech in Ukraine,” including the attempts to revoke licenses of the 5th Channel and TBi.

As for the abovementioned strike, we must say for the sake of fairness that many of our colleagues took rather a skeptical view of this idea. Firstly, there is no direct evidence of censorship on the part of the government. Nobody can try to force journalists to write something, as was the case in the times of Kuchma and Medvedchuk. And the journalists who stay loyal to the current leadership are inclined to believe that the two TV channels are trying, under the guise of “struggling for freedom,” to solve their purely commercial problems linked with the capitalization of their property.

But, at the same time, this does not mean at all that the harassment of these channels is justifiable. To tell the truth, the form of protest is arousing doubts. But is a black TV screen a method to fight censorship? We discussed this with some of The Day’s experts.

COMMENTARIES

Taras VOZNIAK, editor-in-chief, culturological journal Yi:

“Obviously, one of the goals of the new leadership is to fully copy the system of government now existing in Russia. And, to do this, one must gag the mass media by way of intimidation. And the disappearance or beating-up of journalists is an instrument which not only personally concerns the journalist who suffered but is a warning for all journalists in general.

“The trouble is that there has never been a true freedom of speech in Ukraine, for this is a deep-rooted idea which relates to inner culture, when demand for the freedom of speech cannot be an object of debate. But when the freedom of speech is superficial, it may very soon be ‘washed away’ – like a summertime suntan.

“I do not think that journalist protests can have an essential impact on the situation because a few protesting journalists pose no threat. It poses a threat when the public is protesting. But the public is sleeping, and soon ‘they will rouse it all in a blaze.’”

Olha HERASYMIUK, member of the Ukrainian parliament:

“The current leadership, which used to brag about being strong and able to organize itself very fast, proved to be impotent in reality. The point is that the much-hyped job placements, arrests, ‘mop-ups,’ and replacement of ‘aliens’ by ‘ours’ are, first of all, bereft of any quality, for non-professionals have been replaced by the same kind of non-professionals. They cannon possibly hide their absolute ignorance of what kind of a state they want to build. They have no plans or visions. Besides, there are rifts in the team, and they cannot hide this either. The leadership is powerless and, hence, is trying to copy the Russian model of government. But they do not know what is going on in this cauldron which is now boiling, burning, and spewing out not only the wildfire smoke but also the discontent voices of the public. So the first thing the government wants to do is to stifle the freedom of speech. And it is doing this by stupid police-style methods, which expose their non-professionalism and failure to understand the context and history which, incidentally, shows that the more brutal the onslaught on the freedom of speech is, the sooner it is rebuffed.

“They hoped that journalists would be unable to resist, but things went the other way round. The journalist school may have been ruined now, but a breath of freedom seems to have ‘crept’ into young journalists.

“In addition, no matter how hard they try to copycat Russian patterns, they still have to look back at Europe. They can see that Russia is showing the Ukrainian government a place in the corner. Even when Russia’s premier came over, the media reported that Putin ‘will meet the bikers and the president of Ukraine.’ This phrase showed their true attitude to the Ukrainian leadership. The prospect of Europe and the West is interesting for our country because those counties are not taking such a high-handed attitude to them. This idea is not compatible with conflicts of interests, such as the situation with Valerii Khoroshkovsky.

“The protests to which journalists are resorting today are, in my view, a right decision. The channels that did not broadcast their customary programs for an hour last Saturday may have borrowed the experience of their Italian colleagues who sometimes protest by publishing a newspaper with a blank front page. Our society may not be prepared for this kind of protest, but don’t forget that the channels that have opted for this are spending their own money. On the one hand, it is really better not to misuse the air but, on the other hand, this step is not a simple one, given these channels’ commercial status. I know that the viewer is primitive. I received a call from the Poltava region, which complained that, you see, three channels went on the air with empty screens. Our society is used to reacting to television.”

INCIDENTALLY

We are told that all the current transformations, including those in the informational space, mean building “a Ukraine for the people,” a strong and stable state. “A good dictatorship is a dream of bureaucrats,” Mikhail Khodorkovsky told the German journal Der Spiegel. The recent talk between the former businessman and German journalists was extremely useful in the situation with the Ukrainian informational field. Asked about a recipe for Russia to ride out the crisis, Khodorkovsky said: “Modernization is impossible without political reforms. It would be wrong to think that a ‘good dictatorship’ may help build a strong state with a modern economy. A strong state means democratic and effective institutions, such as independent courts, a strong professional parliament, influential opposition which is not radicalized under outside pressure, a developed civil society, and independent mass media.”

This is what the current leadership must understand.