In Odesa, municipal guards were not admitting journalist for session of oblast council

In Odesa, representatives of municipal guards were not admitting to the session of city council the journalist of media outlet 048.ua Olena Kravchenko. The incident took place on October 4, this was reported to the IMI by the chief editor of the media outlet Oleksandr Horodilov. According to him, the guards said that sappers are working in the building, so they refused to admit the journalist after she introduced herself. However, after the editorial office checked the information, no official information was released about reported bombs in the building of the city council. "We have a tendency now where the municipal guards and fighters of this structure do not admit journalists to the city council sessions saying there are no vacant seats. But they still admit hired thugs. They have the list of mass media that are not loyal to the authorities and they treat those mass media correspondingly. We have no complaints about the press service, but we have some to the municipal guards", Oleksandr Horodilov said. The media outlet reminded that this session of the city council last time was interrupted by civil unrest, caused by the tragic death of children from fire in the summer camp for children “Viktoria”. IMI media lawyer Maksym Ratushnyi pointed out that according to the law in effect, the sessions of the bodies of local self-government are to be conducted in an open and transparent manner, with admitting to them any people, and the representatives of mass media, in particular. Also, as the lawyer said, municipal guards can conduct activities related to security, but they do not have powers to select the journalists of which media are to be admitted to open events in the city council.