Dumska journalist attacked while filming in Odesa retirement home

A journalist with the newspaper Dumska was attacked by staff while filming at the municipal St. Pantaleon House of Mercy for the Elderly.

The incident occurred when the correspondent tried to enter the institution's dining room to take photos of the meals served to the residents, according the news story "Exploiting the elderly for embezzlement: municipal shelter in Odesa purchases food at inflated prices", released on the media outlet's website on April 24.

The team says that the shelter's residents contacted them to complaint about the poor food offerings and invited the reporter to visit the institution at lunchtime. The media outlet adds that the St. Pantaleon House of Mercy is not a closed institution; visitors are allowed at the residents' invitation.

When the reporter tried to enter the dining room, several employees of the institution attacked him, trying to cover the camera lens with their hands. The staff behaved aggressively, tried to knock the equipment out of the correspondent's hands and even scratched his face.

Photo by Dumska

The staff claimed their actions were due to the quarantine measures in place at the institution, as well as the internal rules banning outsiders from entering the premises.

The reporter had to leave the institutions' territory for safety reasons and to avoid possible reprisal against the institution's residents.

Dumska chief editor Yuriy Basiuk told the Odesa oblast representative of the Institute of Mass Information that the team had decided not to contact the police or escalate the situation due to the position of the journalist himself, who did not want to argue with the institution's staff.

The team also reported that the correspondent decided to remain anonymous for the investigation.

The Institute of Mass Information lawyer Volodymyr Zelenchuk listed the grounds to argue that the journalist had the right to film in the retirement home.

“If a retirement home is open to the public freely or by invitation, then it can be considered a public place where permission for filming is not required. Moreover, access to information about the work of a municipally owned institution cannot be limited. These two facts alone are grounds enough to argue that the journalist had the right to film in the retirement home, of course given that each person in the home can prohibit filming them personally,” the lawyer said.

At the same time, Volodymyr Zelenchuk emphasized that it is also necessary to take the public interest into account, such as the possible corruption risks, which, according to the journalists, involve the work of this institution.