Verkhovna Rada is proposed to oblige the media to provide journalists with bulletproof vests, helmets, and first aid kits
Anastasia Lyashenko, a People's Deputy of the "Servant of the People" faction, proposes to oblige media executives to provide bulletproof vests, helmets, and first aid kits to journalists that are being sent to work in the combat zone, as well as to provide insurance at the expense of the employer.
The according bill №7367 was registered in the Verkhovna Rada on May 11, Interfax-Ukraine reports.
The author of the bill proposes to supplement Article 15 of the Law "On State Support of Mass Media and Social Protection of Journalists" with a provision according to which the media are obliged to provide journalists and other employees sent to work in areas of military (combat) operations or temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine with means of protection against firearm or shrapnel wounds, as well as with first aid kits.
Also, according to the bill, these journalists are subject to mandatory insurance at the expense of the employer in case of harm to their lives and health due to their performing of professional duties.
At the same time, the document proposes to specify the amount of one-time financial assistance in case of injury (concussion, trauma or wounds) suffered by journalists while performing their professional duties. The current norms of the law stipulate that in this case, the media representative should be paid up to 50 subsistence minimums from the state budget. The initiator of the bill is convinced of the need to eliminate this uncertainty and provide a clear rule that the sum of such assistance should be 50 subsistence minimums.
In addition, Article 7 of the Law on Insurance is proposed to be amended, according to which the mandatory insurance types also include insurance of media workers during their work in areas of military (combat) operations or in the temporarily occupied territory.
As IMI reported, the International Journalist Insurance Fund has been founded in Ukraine. Representatives of independent media who go to the combat zone, the occupied territories, and the liberated territories (within one month after the liberation) can be insured. The foundation was initiated by six public organizations: Suspilnist Foundation, the Association of Independent Regional Publishers of Ukraine (AIRPU), Institute of Mass Information, Detector Media, the Center for Democracy and the Rule of Law, and the Institute for Regional Press Development.
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