Administration of “Vesti” complains about not being able to get to their workplaces for a week

Administration of newspaper and website of “Vesti” considers the actions of people who seized their office an obstruction to their journalist activities. The people in question were under supervision of the National Agency for Search and Administration of Assets received from corruption and other crimes (ARMA). This was reported at conference by the chief editor of the newspaper “Vesti” and website vesti-ukr.com, Oksana Omelchenko, at the press conference in Kyiv, Interfaks-Ukraina informs. “What is happening is an unprecedented pressure. And we see that all actions performed by the raiders are focused on obstructing our journalist activities. We found ourselves practically without equipment, we cannot get to our workplaces”, Omelchenko said. She said that the unidentified people control the office seven days already. “On Thursday, they came in with the help of police representatives, they are called by people “titushky”, and they stay there for seven days already. They are visited by representatives of ARMA and business center "Navigator" - they are subcontractors of the National Agency for administration of assets”, the chief editor said. According to Omelchenko, before the raiders destroyed security cameras, they could observe them smashing office equipment and furniture belonging to the media holding. In addition, on February 13, the Facebook account of "Vesti" was blocked, too. Editor-in-chief of "Radio Vesti" Andriy Blinov said the greater part of the radio station's equipment is lost, but the radio continues broadcasting from the back-up studio. The attorney Oleksandr Dulskyi announced that he intends to petition European Human Rights Court due to events around the media holding “Vesti”. He emphasized that Pecherskyi district court of Kyiv city released the premises of the media holding from arrest, and no one filed an appeal against this resolution, but the journalists still cannot get access to their property.