44 violations of freedom of speech registered during the 4th quarter of 2018

44 cases of violations of freedom of speech have been registered since October till the 27th of December 2018 in 13 regions of Ukraine by IMI experts. Among them there are 33 cases of physical assaults against the journalists. Such are the results of the monthly survey "Barometer of Press Freedom” held by the Institute of Mass Information. Three leading categories are: “obstruction of journalistic activities (23 cases), “threatens and intimidations” (7 cases) and “restriction of access to public information” (5 cases). The journalists were impeded to take pictures, they were obstructed to move, to attend the sittings of municipal councils, some unknown persons spilled kefir on journalists’ face, tried to seize microphone and so on. The journalists were threatened with physical reprisals, to smash equipment or to throw out of transport. The most part of violations were revealed in Kyiv (20 cases) during the last 3 months. Then the regions of Lviv and Poltava followed (4 cases in each region), then Volyn (3 cases) follows. There were 2 or one incidents registered in other regions. The rights to practice profession of journalism were violated by some private persons, representatives of central and local authorities, as to the monitoring.