Guards of Zelensky pushed aside journalists on iForum ", journalist for "Liga.net got hits to his stomach

In Kiev, on May 23rd, the security staff of the President Vladimir Zelensky used force and pushed aside the journalists who tried to ask questions to him at the iForum conference. As a result, the correspondent for Liga.net Yuriy Smirnov received strikes to the stomach, as he told it to “Detektor Media. "The Public guard department (PGD) staff performed its work, as usual, with much of “diligence”, and scattered everyone who was standing on their way. Unfortunately, I set foot in their path. They actively pushed me away from the president, being not ashamed to use their hands, " he said. But he stressed that it was not a beating. "It is hard to call it violence, but, naturally, it's very unpleasant for me, as a journalist who wanted to ask the questions to the speaker," the Liga.net correspondent added. In addition, he told he was not going to complain to the police. Oksana Romanyuk, executive director of the Institute of Mass Information, called for a prompt investigation into the incident. "The guard of the President Zelensky beat journalist of" Liga.net. At the I Forum conference. Not a day without getting shock from the "new authority." We require a prompt investigation and punishment of the guilty, as well as apologies from Zelensky, "- she wrote on her Facebook page. According to Liga.net , the newly elected president has come to iForum, surrounded by a dozen of the Public guard department men. When journalists tried to ask a question to Volodymyr Zelensky, he kept moving and did not answer them. At the same time, he agreed to do sephie. As the journalist Yuri Smirnov told : "I held both arms above, since I tried to shoot a video to ask question to Zelensky. It is logical to suppose that a journalist who was checked previously and who is shooting on the camera with his hands up is unlikely to pose a potential threat to the protected object. But even when I was already behind Zelensky and the circle of his guards, a Public guard department man ran to me, firmly took my hand and literally pushed me a couple of meters back. What was the need for such measures, I do not know. I did not run, did not make sharp movements. On the contrary, at the time of the unexpected decision of the guards, I almost stopped, because Zelensky was heading to the exit, and I realized the hopelessness of an attempt to ask him a question. " He noted that when he got strike into his stomach, it was not targeted hits, and it's hard to call it "beating", as some media outlets wrote. "Prior to this, when about a dozen journalists with cameras in their hands tried to ask the questions to Zelensky, his guards were not ashamed to use their hands. They roughly pushed anyone, even those who was behind Zelensky. When repulsing journalists from Zelensky, I got several hits with elbow in my stomach. These were not targeted hits, so it was noway questsion of "beating" case. This was the classical behavior of the Public guard department men who believed that they could do whatever they wanted while protecting the object. To seize the journalists by hands scatter them away, notwithstanding the means, "- Smirnov wrote. He added that he had no bruises or traces of beatings.