Petition to рresident of Ukraine

To the President of Ukraine
Viktor Yanukovych

Dear Mr President!
Journalistic movement “Stop Censorship!” expresses concern about adoption and signing of the law "On the Court Fee" which, we believe, seriously restricts freedom of speech and activity of independent mass-media in Ukraine.
The new law actually restores the situation which had existed before 2003 and allowed anyone, dissatisfied with the publication, to bring an action against media, by paying meager fee. The amount of compensation of moral damages which was required in such cases before year 2003, reached a million, while the amount of fees was incommensurable.
It led to bankruptcy and suppression of several media, which were not able to pay moral damages. One of the most famous stories is suppression of the news-paper “Vseukrajinski Vidomosti", which lost a suit of the football club "Dynamo" (Kyiv), after publishing information on the sale of the football player Andriy Shevchenko to Italian club "Milan". Because of the failure to pay the sum of money the newspaper had been closed and Andriy Shevchenko still was sold to the Italian club afterwards.
After legislative changes in 2003, the amount of fee became proportional to the amount of the claim. Then, according to the decree of the Cabinet of Ministers "On State Fee", the fee proportional to 10% of the largest claims had to be paid.
Despite the appeals of NGOs and attempts of some MPs to prevent the adoption of the law "On the Court Fee" as follows, the Parliament had adopted it and You did not impose veto on it. We believe that signing of this law is a major step back in the sphere of information policy of an independent democratic state. After all, the economic pressure on media is a type of censorship, which can be conducted by both pro-government entities, and commercial organizations close to them.
We urge the President of Ukraine as a subject of legislative initiative and the guarantor of the Constitution of Ukraine to protect journalists from lawsuits and submit a proposition to amend paragraph 6, paragraph 1, paragraph 2, Article 4 of the law "On the Court Fee" by returning a progressive scale of court fees in claims to the media and journalists.
We urge the Parliamentary Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information, whose main aim is legal guarantee of freedom of speech in the country, to assist the adoption of these amendments after the beginning of the session

Activists of the civic movement “Stop Censorship!”.
2 August 2011 KYIV
 
 Information on Civic movement “Stop Censorship!”
The civic movement “Stop Censorship!” was founded on May 21, 2010. The movement is an informal group of journalists which appeared in response to oppression of the freedom of speech in Ukraine.
This is the initiative of Ukrainian journalists and media public organizations aimed at assertion of the freedom of speech, prevention of censorship establishing in Ukraine, making impossible interference in journalist professional activity and professional standards violation in terms of presentation of socio-political matters.
The civic movement “Stop Censorship!” does not support any political force and has no financial support from any political party.
You may find more information and join the civic movement “Stop Censorship!” following the link:
http://www.telekritika.ua/news/2010-05-22/53128

Blog of the civic movement “Stop Censorship!”: http://stopcensorship.wordpress.com
Twitter:  http://twitter.com/Stopcensorship

Contact person:
Artem Sokolenko
Coordinator of the press-center
Civic movement “Stop Censorship!”
050 440 46 08, [email protected]