Police registered complaint of obstruction to work as simple citizen petition
Kherson police did not register the complaint from the journalist Oleg Baturin who claimed the administration had denied access to the meeting of the Kakhovsk municipal council to the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations (URPI). They entered the information solely to the Unified Police Accounting Journal. Tetyana Pshon, head of PR department of the National Police Directorate in Kherson region, told it to IMI representative in the Kherson region.
"They won’t enter the report to the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations, because there was no physical obstruction by anyone. The report is to be considered by a local police officer as a petition from citizen, since the Municipal Council had issued the decision signed by the chairman about who might be present at a closed-door meeting," she said.
IMI lawyer Ali Safarov noted that by doing that, the police violated the established procedure for accepting complaints.
He noted that the police often do not register complaints from journalists about obstruction of their legitimate professional activity, and in particular they register it as "petitions from citizens".
"Such action by the police is breach to the established procedure for accepting complaints of crimes. In compliance with the Article 214 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the investigator, the prosecutor are obliged to immediately accept any complaint of crime and register it at URPI. Any investigative measures, fack-check of complaint, crime's qualification, etc., are envisageable only afterr the complaint has been registered with the URPI, "Ali Safarov said.
According to him, failure to enter information in the URPI can be appealed under Article 303 of the Criminal Procedure Code, and the investigator or other official, who failed to enter the complaint to the register, may be prosecuted.
As IMI reported, on March 19, Kakhovka City Council staff denied access to the journalist Oleg Baturin to the meetings of city council working commissions, citing the ruling of the Mayor Andriy Dyachenko.
"The Kakhovsk city council forbids the journalists to get in its administrative building, except the journalists of the newspapers Kakhovskie Novosti and Kakhovskaya Zorya. At the entrance, the head of the organizational and personnel department Oksana Migas was standing and some other employees of the City Council who did not let me into the building, "- he told.
The Mayor decided to restrict the access to the premises for the journalists. But for two local editions, the Mayor Andriy Dyachenko made an exception.
The journalist called the police, which made a report under Art. 171 of the Criminal Code ("Obstruction of the Legal Professional Activity of Journalists").
Oleg Baturin found that in this way, the functionaries disguise some important information from his readers.
As IMI reported, on March 18, the Novokakhovsk City Council (Kherson region) adopted a decision to hold closed-door sessions, asking all journalists and attendees to leave the premises.
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