In Zaporizhzhya, head of loan association attacked journalist of TV and Radio company

On October 2, in Zaporizhzhya, the local TV and Radio company «Aleks»' correspondent Alina Syrevych and camera operator Oleksiy Demchenko were attacked by a representative of the loan association. As a result, police launched a criminal case for obstruction of professional duties of journalist, article 171 part 1 of the Crininal Code of Ukraine.
   The journalist, Alina Syrevych, wanted to make a story on deceived contributors of the loan association that cannot get their money back. During the meeting, the representative of the association was aggressive, and, when he understood what the journalist was after, demanded to give him the camera and the footage, threatened them, and assaulted them physically, hitting Alina in the chest and using the door to hit the journalists on their way out. The journalists called the police. At first, the police was reluctant to qualify the crime as obstruction of professional duties of journalist, insisting it was “hooliganism”. Yet later, when the case became widely known, they reconsidered.