Parliamentary Committee on freedom of speech did not find ground to revoke accreditation of journalist for 1+1 TV channel

The Committee on freedom of speech and information policy at the Verkhovna Rada see no ground to revoke the accreditation of Ihor Koltunov, journalist for the program Money at 1+1 TV channel. On the 6th of February, the head of the Committee Victoria Sumar told it after the Committee examined the complaint of the MP Oleh Barna against Ihor Koltunov and his colleague Serhiy Savintsev (news agency Kyi-info and SPI), as to Detektor Media. The MP Barna claimed the TV channel 1+1 discredited and defamed him and did not let him to reply. The journalist Koltunov refuted these blames and said to consider this complaint from the M P as a political pressure. As to Oleksander Sochka, member of the Committee the member of the parliament had to bring the case before the court. In case if the judges decide the journalist had violated the principles of journalistic ethics, so the Committee will examine the issue of withdrawal of his accreditation. “The Committee of freedom of speech and information policy does not see any good ground to revoke the accreditation of Koltunov and calls our colleagues within the parliament to have an ethical behavior”, Victoria Sumar told. The press officer for 1+1 TV channel commented on the incident saying the demand of Oleh Barna to revoke accreditation of its journalist had been absurd. The case of Serhiy Savintsev was not discussed at this sitting, as he had quitted Kyi-info and has no more his parliamentary accreditation. IMI reported, on the 2nd of October 2018 Oleh Barna, MP from Block of Petro Poroshenko (BPP) had recourse to rude language agaisnt the journalist after his question why the MP pushed for three times while voting.