In October, for the first monthly period in 7 months, no journalists were taken prisoners — IMI

The prevailing forms of freedom of press violations in October of 2014 were assaults against journalists — 11 cases, at that only two of them were directly related to parliamentary elections. In October, there were also 17 cases of obstruction to journalists to perform their professional duties, and in September no such cases were registered.

This is the data of the monthly survey of the Institute of Mass Information «Freedom of press barometer».

10 cases of obstruction to professional activities of journalists took place on the day of the unscheduled parliamentary elections, on October 26. The greatest number of such violations was registered by IMI in Kherson (3), Odesa (2) and in Dnipropetrovsk region (2). Examples of the registered violations are: refusal to allow to attend to commission meetings, to special polling stations, refusal to register, proxy’s demands to stop recording of the balloting, and forbidding to film using a tablet.

For the first time in seven months, IMI did not register any cases of kidnapping or illegal confinement of journalists. Yet, four journalists still remain prisoners of terrorists in the East of Ukraine. They became prisoners yet in July and August: Serhiy Skadynskyi, Yevhen Shliakhtyn, Yevhen Tymofeyev and Roman Cheremskyi.

In addition, in October 9 cyber-crimes were registered, four of them were related to Parliamentary elections. For example, the editor-in-chief of «Prestupnosti.NET», Anatoliy Chubachenko, mentioned that their website has been suffering from powerful DDoS-attacks before all elections. And Zhytomyr.info draws a connection of the DDoS attack on the eve of the «silence day» with the parliamentary elections – in particular, with rejecting the proposal to publish «black PR» against candidates and parties.

According to Kateryna Diachuk, IMI expert, protest actions still remain dangerous for work of journalists in Ukraine. «Of 11 cases of beatings and attacks against journalists, the majority are related to actions conducted in Kyiv near the Presidential Administration and Verkhovna Rada. In particular, on October 10 unidentified individuals wearing camouflage uniforms smashed the camera of the filming crew of the program "Extraordinary news" of the TV channel ICTV, and on October 14, a cameraman of channel "112 Ukraine" was attacked with a jet of tear gas during the clashes near the Verkhovna Rada. On the same day, during the coverage of clashes near the Verkhovna Rada, Reuters photographer suffered a head injury inflicted by unidentified individuals», Kateryna Diachuk said.

In total, since the beginning of 2014, IMI registered 7 cases of murder of journalists, 74 kidnappings or illegal confinement, 281 case of beatings and assaults against journalists, 137 facts of obstruction to lawful professional activities of journalists, and 130 cases of censorship.