Mykola Yunak, a Volodymyr City Council official (Volyn oblast), “Servant of the People” member, attacked a filming crew with the Syla Pravdy Investigative Journalism Center, the media outlet reports.
According to Syla Pravdy, the official grabbed journalist Natalka Koval’s phone and stole it in the presence of police officers. The journalists filed a statement with the police for obstruction of reporting.
The incident occurred on 28 May at the Zakhidnyi Buh farm in Volodymyr, which the official owns.
The journalists had arrived in Volodymyr to get a comment from the official for a news story about the conflict between the Zakhidnyi Buh farm and the land share owners who did not their receive rent payments, according to media reports. The journalists arrived at the farm in voter reception hours.
The media outlet pointed out that the security guards had let the filming crew into the premises and an authorized person had come out of the building to comment on the situation and answer the journalists’ questions on video. Later, Mykola Yunak ran out of the office and started accusing the journalists of tresspassing and espionage.
After that, the official called the police.
“As officers from the Volodymyr police department were taking explanations from the journalists, the official grabbed the phone from correspondent Natalka Koval, which she was using to film the events, and broke it by tossing it inside the building. The elected official disregarded the police officers’ request to return the private property to its owner,” Syla Pravdy writes.
Then the journalist filed a police statement for obstruction of reporting.
Natalka Koval said that Mykola Yunak had grabbed her phone even though she had not been filming at the time:
“We were finishing our conversation with the police, and at that moment Mykola Yunak started insulting my colleague Anna Prysiazhna. He said some inappropriate things that I don’t even want to repeat. In order to somehow defend Anna, I took out my phone to let him know that I was ready to film his behaviour. Then he ran up to me, grabbed my phone, opened his office, ran inside, threw it against the floor, turned around and shut the door behind him. When the policeman told him to give me back the device, Yunak claimed that he hadn’t taken anything!”
On 29 May, Syla Pravdy videographer Anna Prysiazhna told Maya Holub, the Institute of Mass Information representative in Volyn oblast, that she and journalist Natalka Koval had been at the Volodymyr police station since early morning.
Volyn oblast police spokeswoman Olha Buzuluk said in a comment to the IMI representative that the police were investigating the incident as obstruction of reporting.
“The director [of the company] committed actions that may consitute obstruction of reporting. An investigative group was working on site. The police carried out their duties as prescribed by the law and within the scope of their mandate,” commented Olha Buzuluk.