Local authorities interfere with work of newspaper "Zamok" in Rivne region

Deputies of Dubenska town council (Rivnenska oblast) insist on establishing a special deputy commission for inspection of the printed public political weekly newspaper “Zamok” (“Castle”). They explain their decision by the fact that the newspaper does not write enough about them. This information comes from the story aired by the local “Sfera-TV”. As it is stated in the story, starting from summer this year, the local authorities began to interfere with the newspaper's activities as they are not happy with how the newspaper covers the work of local communal enterprises and services. The newspaper staff is convinced that such inspection is illegal. The newspaper's editor-in-chief, Mykola Moroz, assures that every issue of the newspaper covers activities of the deputies. He thinks that the real reason why the authorities want to conduct inspection is they want a reason to reduce the financing of the communal newspaper from 40 to 23 thousand hryvnias. The mayor of Dubny, Vasyl Antoniuk, also thinks that this inspection is illegal, yet he does not intend to interfere,as he thinks as a result they migh actually increase the financing of the newspaper. The head of the National Journalist Association in Rivnenaska oblast Dmytro Tarasiuk assured that the association will conduct professional analysis of published materials, basing on which, further discussion of the situation will be held.