State Committee for TV and Radio asks Miyatovich to protect journalists from terror of self-proclaimed authorities and occupational troops

The State Committee for TV and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine officially addressed the OSCE representative for freedom of press Dunya Miyatovich requesting to take immediate measures for protection of the rights of foreign and Ukrainian journalists in Donetska and Luhanska oblasts of Ukraine and in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

«With approval of self-proclaimed authorities and Russian occupational troops, real terror was unleashed against Ukrainian and foreign journalists. Assassinations, beatings and assaults against mass media employees, kidnapping and illegal detainment, seizure of offices of local mass media, censorship - all this became not an exception, but a usual practice there», the letter says.

According to the State Committee, since the beginning of Russia's armed aggression, at least 78 journalists at some point were prisoner of Russian terrorist troops, over 60 assaults against offices of media outlets were registered, many of those mass media were unable to recover and to work normally after this. A lot of journalists were forced to leave Crimea, Donetska and Luhanska oblasts due to threats and intimidation.

«All this is happening on the background of wide-scale and aggressive assault of Russian propaganda, which, against European mass media standards, instigates interethnic conflicts in Ukraine, call to overthrowing legal Ukrainian authorities and disintegration of the independent and unified Ukraine», the letter says.

"Procrastination with applying real counter-measures  against those who declared war on journalism, can cause unpredictable consequences" - the address emphasizes.