In Ivano-Frankivsk, governor's meeting regarding draft was closed for journalists

On January 24, the meeting the governor Oleh Honcharuk held with the local oblast administration’s top officials and civil activists regarding draft for military service was closed for journalists. The one who spoke against presence of journalists was Roman Ostrovskiy, the leader of civil activists. The governor did not mind, and after this, participants of the meeting moved to other premises and did not invite mass media representatives with them. They wanted to evict the journalists even from the first part of the meeting and ban them from covering it, but the governor said he had authority to command only local communal mass media and his press service.

Roman Ostrovskyi demanded nervously to take away the journalists, as he was convinced they would cover the facts shared at the meeting in a negative and biased manner.

Ostrovskyi himself says they only asked not to publish anything until the end of the meeting.

The editor of the local website Blitz-info Marianna Ohorodnyk said that activists snatched her tablet from her hands and were checking what she was writing there.

Natalia Kushnirenko, who is the journalist who reported this, thinks that such actions of the authorities constitute obstruction to journalist activities and concealing information from journalists.