Editorial office of "Skhemy" complains about journalist of their program being put under surveillance

The administration of the investigation program “Skhemy” (joint project of Radio Liberty and TV channel “UA: Pershyi”) states that the journalist of the program Oleksandr Chornovalov is under surveillance, Radio liberty reports. “Even before, we noticed suspicious activities in relation to our journalists. But in this case, the journalist is being shadowed in a very open manner. We do not know who is the party doing this, we do not understand what their reasons might be, so we are forced to make this information public”, said the chief editor of the program “Skhemy” Natalka Sedletska. Lately, the journalist noticed that he was under surveillance at least three times. In the evening of October 17, when Oleksandr was returning from the office to his home, he noticed two men who were photographing him with their phone and shadowing him. He got off the train earlier than planned, and they followed him. When the journalist approached these men and asked them who they were and why they follow him, they did not answer. When he tried to photograph them, they turned away and started hiding behind the column at the metro station. After the administration reviewed the records of camera in the editor's office for the day, they noticed these men started following the journalist right from the office. the journalist filed a complaint about this to the police. Also, the staff of the program is investigating this case, too, to identify the people who shadow the journalist, Natalka Sedletska said. Oleksandr Chornovalov works in the investigation program “Skhemy” since the time they were created in 2014. He published several high-profile investigations about corruption of high officials. In several days before the journalist noticed surveillance, he, with Natalka Sedletska as a co-author, published his investigation about the judge of the Higher Economic court of Ukraine Arthur Yemelianov, about the collection of real estate all around the world, registered as ownership of the judge's ex-wife.