"Espreso" and "Holka" report censorship, takedown attempt

"Espreso" and the public initiative "Holka" reported attempts to take down an article related to the work of the "Servant of the People" party chair Olena Shulyak and the deputy prime minister Oleksandr Kubrakov from the espreso.tv website.

The statement was posted on the "Holka" website.

The column "'Servants of the People' leader Shulyak and Deputy Prime Minister Kubrakov arrange an inspection of the KMA: what's wrong with that?" was written by "Holka" analyst Heorhiy Mohylny.

It was posted to the "Insight" section on the espreso.tv website on March 26.

This material features a quote from the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (KMA) rector Serhiy Kvit, who mentions Shulyak and Kubrakov while discussing an urban planning "reform":

"Those who lobbied for the scandalous urban planning 'reform' No. 5655, which did not provide for proper cultural heritage protection, decided to whitewash themselves in the media and show the public that they are steadfast defenders of this heritage. And it is crucial to record one more detail here: when the chair of the leading party write the request (about the KMA cells restoration. – Ed.)? On December 21 last year. It was on that day that we at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy openly submitted the documents. And our experts also included those working on an alternative to No. 5655, the Urban Planning Code. A week before that, the Ministry of Regions failed to pass a a clone of the urban planning 'reform' which was criticized by the European Parliament, the European Commission, and recently by the Chatham House. But no one will allow politicians to exploit the KMA reputation to whitewash themselves," says Kvit.

On March 28, an intermediary contacted "Espreso's" commercial department, which deals with advertising, offering the channel money for taking the column down from the website, says the "Espreso" producer general Anastasia Ravva.

"The standards of our editorial team not only prohibit us from money for cleaning up the media landscape, but also oblige us to inform the society of such incidents in order to prevent further attempts to interfere in editorial policies," Ravva said.

Iryna Fedoriv, head of the public initiative "Holka", stresses that this is not the first attempt to purge the information field when it comes to the scandalous urban planning "reform" (No. 5655) or the work on the alternative initiative, the Urban Planning Code:

"Big reconstruction is big money. And big money is big players who want to create unfair rules for the game. The Royal Chatham House Institute, which drew on the analysis of the government's clone decree to the urban planning 'reform' by our KMA expert to develop their paper 'Building long-term resilience in Ukraine. The battle with corruption in wartime', emphasized that there are risks of a construction cartel emerging. Does anyone still doubt that we are looking at a cartel conspiracy? Big real estate developers want such rules for themselves, which suit them and allow them to quickly absorb funds for reconstruction. They don't need too much noise here. Previously censorship occurred in the 'Uryadovy Courier'. 'Espresso' is not the government's outlet. They cannot find administrative grounds to take down the column, so they are trying to solve it with money. It didn't work," Fedoriv said.

According to her, "over the past two years everyone is already used to the whole ordeal with the legislative initiative No. 5655 and the behavior of its lobbyists."

"Now in view of all this, the attempt to discredit the KMA looks most shameful. Following this column, an assistant to a Kyiv City Council deputy from 'Servant of the People' accused the RMA rector... of what? Of buying journalists! And who is it who really is trying to purge the media space for money? These cases have to signal to our international partners. As for the central government, certain staff decisions should be passed there after such unprincipled lobbying which slows down the country's development for years," Fedoriv added.