Police have opened two proceedings based on investigations by the Rivne-based online news outlet Chetverta Vlada. The first one concerns extortion in a Rivne maternity hospital, and the second one is about real estate schemes related to Rivne lakeshore land, Chetverta Vlada reports on Instagram and on their website.
A proceedings have been opened under Article 184 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine “Violation of the right to free health care” based on a statement by the news outlet’s journalist Oksana Havrysh.
“This statement is a logical continuation of the journalist’s investigations into extortion in the municipal maternity hospital owned by the Rivne City Council,” the media outlet’s Instagram post says.
In the second case, police will investigate allegations of unauthorized occupation of a land plot on the shore of Lake Basiv Kut for a tennis court. As the news outlet reported, a technical passport for a 32 acre plot claiming that there are buildings there has been issued unlawfully. Later, Rivne City Council deputies agreed to prepare the paperwork for a 49-year land lease. One of the founders of the organization behind the scheme is Vitaliy Halaichuk, a former business partner of the acting mayor of Rivne, Viktor Shakyrzyan.
Earlier this year, the police closed two proceedings related to obstruction of reporting by Chetverta Vlada journalists. One of the cases was about the negative PR campaign targeting the agency, and the other one concerned the non-admission of the media outlet’s journalist Dmytro Domashchuk to a public event.