In Poltavska oblast, village mayor and council representatives did not let journalists attend session

The editor-in-chief Mykhailo Pohribnyi and journalist Olena Buhai from the newspaper “Visnyk Semenivshchyny” (Poltavska oblast) were not admitted to Semenivka village council session by local village representatives and the council chair (village mayor). The reason for this, as the mayor Liudmyla Mylashevych said, was that the newspaper “produces puke”. This was reported by the IMI representative in Poltavska oblast.

On June 21, the village council had an unscheduled session, with one issue on the agenda - on merging village communities into a single unified Semenivka-based community.

In the audio record that was published on the website, the village mayor claims that the journalists were supposed to file an application to be present at the session.

“It had to be done (filing an application – ed.), because you are... You are a newspaper that produces puke… We have the Civil Code, you need to ask each council member if they want to be photographed, recorded. You have your right, as press, as journalists you were supposed to bring to me in the morning an application informing that you want to be at the session”, Mylashevych said to the journalists.

In his comment for IMI, Mykhailo Pohribnyi said that he could not persuade the mayor and council chair that the journalists have a right to be present at the session. The newspaper currently is preparing an official complaint to the prosecutor's office regarding this case.