In Lviv region, rayon council adopted resolution to make journalist to apologize for her publication

Zolochivska rayon council in Lvivska oblast adopted a resolution in support of declaration of the factions of the rayon council to demand a public apology of the rayon council member and journalist Lesia Horhota to the council member Oleh Banakh, whom she described in her article “Project of Medvedchuk-Putin in Zolochiv raion”, published on March 19 in the newspaper “Nasha Ukrainska Sprava” (where Horhota is the editor-in-chief).

In particular, the council adopted the statement signed by members of “Batkivshchyna”, “Svoboda”, UKROP and “People's Control”. The statement calls the article "dirty technologies". In fact, Lesia Horhota raised in her article an issue of creation of "fake community structures" that are designed to undermine the influence of local community on decision making: the leader of the territorial community is Banakh, who is also the member of local rayon council.

Lesia Horhota says she does not intend to apologize for her article, as she did the right thing, both as a journalist and a citizen of Ukraine.

IMI lawyer Maksym Ratushnyi comments that the resolution of the rayon council is not based on any legislation, and therefore, based on Article 19 of the Constitution, which states that no one can be forced to do something that is not provided for in the legislation, the council’s resolution simply cannot be enforced based on the current Ukrainian legislation.