In May, IMI recorded 13 violations of press freedom in Ukraine

Photo credits: EU observer.com In May, IMI experts recorded 13 cases of violations of press freedom in Ukraine. All of them were cases of physical assaults against journalists. These are the figures of the monthly survey "Freedom of Press Barometer" held by of the Institute of Mass Media. The most frequent violation of rights of the journalists were cases of obstruction of lawful activities of the journalist: 7 (on April : 8, on March : 15, on February : 11, on January : 7). Altogether, IMI identified the violations of press freedom in seven regions. As usual, in terms of quantity of violations, Kyiv held top position with four cases recorded in May. Then it followed by Volyn region with three cases, Odessa region with two cases. Better situation is revealed in the regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Rivne, Kherson and Cherkasy with single case for each of them. Private persons, law enforcement officers, judicial and local authorities were found out to be offenders of the rights of the journalists. In May, the IMI experts identified two cases for each of three categories - "beatings and assaults" (an attack on journalist and video blogger Vadym Komarov in Cherkassy; an assault committed by customs officers against the TV crew from the Lutsk TV channel "Avers"); "threats" (the journalist for the web-based edition "Radar" in Volhyn region Nataliya Kayshnykova received death threats, elected person of the Kherson regional council threatened to “break knees” to the journalist Oleh Baturyn) and "causing damage to the journalists’ property" (arson of the house of the journalist for “Radar” Nataliya Kamyshnykova, and arson of the car of TVi channel in Kyiv Volodymyr Yegorov). The attack on Vadym Komarov is the most serious crime against the journalists since the beginning of the year, which has been recorded by IMI. The journalist remains in medically induced coma. Thus, since the beginning of the year, IMI has recorded 48 cases of obstruction of professional activity of journalist, 12 cases of threats, 5 beatings and assaults.