Human rights organizations and the PGU office will work together to investigate Russia's war crimes against journalists

Photo: screenshot from TSN's video

Human rights and media organizations have agreed to cooperate with the Prosecutor General's Office while investigating Russia's war crimes against the media and journalists in Ukraine.

This was discussed at the online meeting held on October 6.

The participants of the meeting agreed on regular information exchanges aimed at improving the investigation of Russian war crimes against the media and journalists committed in Ukraine.

Separately, the working group agreed to develop a mechanism for bringing Russian propagandists who engage in disinformation, calls for the murder of Ukrainians, and justification of the Russian army's war crimes to justice.

The progress of the investigations into crimes against journalists in Ukraine was also discussed at the meeting. According to the PGO, since the beginning of this year, pre-trial investigation bodies have registered a total of 74 criminal offenses against media representatives. Taking cases from last year into account, 232 cases where journalists are involved as victims are currently being investigated, 12 suspicion notices have been issued, and 13 cases have been brought to court (including those from previous years).

In addition, the meeting's participants discussed the progress of investigation into the murder of journalist Max Levin, who was tortured to death by the Russians this March.

The meeting was attended by representatives of the Prosecutor General's Office, Ukrainian media and human rights organizations. Namely, by IMI executive director Oksana Romaniuk, Detector Media deputy editor-in-chief Svitlana Ostapa, head of the Zmina Center for Human Rights board Tetyana Pechonnyk. There were also representatives of international organizations, namely the head of the RSF investigative department Arnaud Froger, the head of the RSF legal department Paul Coppin, and the head of the Council of Europe's Office in Ukraine project "The European Union and the Council of Europe work together to support media freedom in Ukraine" Halyna Smyrnova.

As IMI reported, after the full-scale invasion, harsh hate speech in Russian propaganda media has given way to direct calls for the genocide of Ukrainians.