Ukraine is up by 22 positions in freedom of press rating of "Reporters without borders"

Ukraine was rated the 107^th of 180 countries in the International Press Freedom Index for 2015, published on April 20 by the international advocacy organization “Reporters Without Borders”.

According to this index, Ukraine is up 22 positions compared to the previous year (129). Ukraine was rated with 39.1 points of one hundred: that is, the experts of the Reporters registered improvement by 6.17 points compared to the previous year. At the same time, the Reporters’ experts indicate that there are “noticeable problems” for mass media’s work.

It should be mentioned that Ukraine’s rating does not include the occupied territory of Crimea and so-called “LPR” and “DPR”.

IMI executive director and representative of “Reporters Without Borders” in Ukraine Oksana Romaniuk mentioned that this is one of the largest uplifts of this year's ratings.

“Partly it is due to reduction of the number of assaults against journalists (for comparison, last year's rating was strongly affected by mass beatings of journalists at the Maidan and the war in the East). The rating also reflects general improvement after the new government came to power, in particular, recent reforms of the mass media sphere. Yet 107th position is still not so great. There are still problems of mass media independence/pressure of oligarchs in the media sector, temptations of “information war” with Russia, the problem of impunity of attacks against journalists, etc.”, - Romaniuk said.

In general, the Reporters state, the overall level of the freedom of mass media in the world in 2015 rapidly declined, Radio Liberty  adds.

In particular, governmental agencies imposed stricter limitations on the work of journalists in Turkey, Poland, Tajikistan and Egypt. Independent mass media also experience a more frequent pressure of "religious ideologies" and "wide-scale propaganda factories”. Oligarchs buy off mass media all around the world, and pressure them, combining this pressure with governmental one, the Reporters add.