Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs hyped NUJU and spread fake news on IMI

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spread fake news about the activities of the NGO "Institute of Mass Information" in its annual report "On human rights in Ukraine", which was published on July 16, 2020. Russian Foreign Ministry referred to the data of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) and quoted the site "Strana". 

In particular, in its section “Restrictions on mass media (censorship, pressure, persecution of journalists)”, the Russian Foreign Ministry cited the head of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine Serhiy Tomilenko and “Strana” saying that IMI did not objectively reflect the situation with pressure on mass media ” in its monitoring.

The report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation said that this was the reason why the NUJU "introduced its own, alternative" Index of Physical Security ", monitoring of attacks on journalists."

Then the Russian foreign agency provided fake data about the IMI Barometer, and publicized the NUJU and the "Strana":

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs provided false data on the monitoring of IMI freedom of speech in 2017, while promoting the opinion of the NUJU: "If in 2017 the NUJU recorded 90 cases of force, IMI, according to the NUJU, for the same period provides 29 cases". 

In fact, in 2017, IMI recorded 281 cases of violations of freedom of speech,and 181 of which involved physical aggression against journalists. It will be recalled that according to the IMI methodology, physical aggression means killings, abductions, obstruction, detention, threats, beatings, attacks on media offices and damage to journalists' property.

The Institute of Mass Information conducts a monthly all-Ukrainian monitoring of the Freedom of Speech Barometer by the following categories: physical aggression, censorship and access to information, economic and political pressure, legal pressure and cybercrime against the mass media and journalists. Only cases related to freedom of speech and professional journalism are included in the monthly report. 

In the first quarter of 2021, IMI experts recorded 50 cases of violations of freedom of speech in Ukraine. Of these, 36 of them involved physical aggression against journalists.