IMI begins synchronizing the lists of journalists killed by Russia with Prosecutor General
The Prosecutor General’s Office and the media community have begun to synchronize the lists of journalists killed by Russia. Namely, the list maintained by the Institute of Mass Information is to be synchronized with the PGO's official data. The effort aims to improve advocacy, investigations, and achieving justice for Russia's crimes against the media.
The task force investigating Russia's war crimes against Ukrainian media workers met at the Prosecutor General’s Office on December 17, reports Kateryna Dyachuk, head of the freedom of speech department of the Institute of Mass Information, who was present at the meeting.
The event was also attended by Oleksiy Boniuk, chief of criminal law policy and investment protection at the Prosecutor General’s Office, military prosecutors, and several media professionals and human rights advocates. Namely, the following representatives of human rights organizations and the media took part in the meeting:
- Kateryna Dyachuk, head of the freedom of speech department of the Institute of Mass Information;
- Svitlana Ostapa, chair of the Suspilne Supervisory Board;
- Olha Skrypnyk, head of the Crimean Human Rights Group;
- Lyudmyla Yankina, public activist;
- Tetyana Kozak, Graty chief editor;
- Yanina Korniyenko, Slidstvo.Info journalist;
- Tetyana Bezruk, ZN.ua journalist.
The participants of the meeting agreed to develop common criteria for recording Russian crimes against the media, in particular the murder of media professionals. This concerns such details as the context of the death, proving the perpetrators' motives, etc.
Moreover, prosecutors and media workers discussed the problem of identifying journalists, proving their status as journalists, and other relevant issues to improve investigations and achieve justice for crimes against journalists.
According to the Institute of Mass Information, as of December 19, 2024, 94 media workers have died in Ukraine as a result of Russia's full-scale invasion (as combatants, civilian casualties, and while reporting).
Previously
As the IMI reported, on September 6, 2024, the Institute of Mass Information, multiple human rights NGOs, and the Prosecutor General's Office signed a Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation.
The memorandum aims to formalize the principles of cooperation between civil society organizations and the PGO and to implement standards for interaction between prosecutors' offices and civil society institutions in matters of bringing war crime perpetrators to justice.
In 2021, media and human rights NGOs and the Prosecutor General's Office signed a memorandum to combat impunity for attacks on journalists.
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