Police of Odesa region opened case for obstructing journalists' work

The police of Odeska oblast, based on the fact of conflict between the local journalist and the head of local communal enterprise, opened a criminal proceeding based on part 1 of article 171 (obstruction to lawful professional activities of journalists) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

This was reported at the website of the National Police in Odeska oblast.

“Before, Podilsk police department received a complaint of the representative of local printed edition that during an attempt to get a comment from one of the administrators of the communal enterprise, she was treated in a rude way, swearing at the cameraman who was with her, and obstructed to performing her professional duties”, the police reports.

Criminal proceeding started based on this fact, investigation is pending.

As IMI reported before, on August 3 in Podilsk city (Odeska oblast), director of communal enterprise “Blahoustriy” Petro Melnyk has forbidden to the cameraman of “Peak” to film, and threatened to break his camera as the journalists tried to take some footage for the story about illegal waste disposal.

The filming crew was forced out of the territory of the enterprise.

The journalist of the TV channel Veronika Palitu complained to the police about this incident.