In Rivne, journalists were not allowed to visit the academic board of the state-owned University

On November 28, journalists of several mass media of Rivne were not able to get to the meeting of the academic board of Rivne State Humanitarian University, “Chetverta Vlada” reports. According to the information of the media outlet, the session of the board was dedicated to discussing indecent behavior of Volodymyr Hodovskyi and what to do with speciality "choreography" in the University. As Anna Kalaur, the correspondent of “Chetverta vlada”, reported from the site, when the rector saw the journalists, he started yelling, driving them away, and called the police. When the journalist took seats, the rector made a motion to remove the journalists from the assembly room, which was supported univocally. Also, some students who wanted to participate in the session, were removed from the room. Kalaur called the police and complained about obstructions. When she came to the room with patrol officers, the rector promptly postponed the session to Friday. He even denied that the session was to be dedicated to Hodovskyi and his behavior. The journalist filed an official written complaint about obstruction to her journalist activities. The relevant provisions regulating the University's academic board functions, do not mention anything about journalists being allowed or not allowed to be present there. Media lawyer Liudmyla Pankratova explained that if there are no mentions of journalists in the relevant provisions, the norms of general legislation should apply - that is, whatever is not forbidden is allowed. Media lawyer of IMI Maksym Ratushnyi said that the law enforcement agencies should consider the situation based on the result of the complaints of the journalists - in this case, it could be abuse of power by the rector who had no rights to remove the journalists from the session. As IMI reported before, the rector of Rivne State Humanitarian University Ruslan Postolovskyi has an intention to sue the media outlet “Chetverta vlada” and the journalist Anna Kalaur due to investigation of the media outlet about sexual harassment of the University's professor, Volodymyr Hodovskyi. On November 15, they published the investigation  prepared for the project "Slidstvo.Info “With word and body”. According to the media outlet, 13 students and teachers reported harassment by the 7-year-old professor Hodovskyi, which he practices for over 20 years. Hodovskyi claims these allegations are lies.