Vice-head of SBU filed 16 claims against journalists and activists

Since April of 2017, vice-head of SBU Pavlo Demchyna filed 16 court claims on protection of his honor and dignity, demanding to refute information published about him by journalists and activists. This was reported by “Ukrainska pravda” , with a reference to the information of the website “Sudova Vlada”. There are 11 lawsuits on protection of honor and dignity, 5 claims to officially acknowledge information invalid and to refute it refutation as a separate case. For example, the judge of Kyivo-Sviatoshynskyi court in Kyivska oblast, N.S.Pinkevych is now considering 5 claims by Demchyna to acknowledge information invalid and to refute it. All five claims were filed on April 18, 2017, and they are being processed by the same judge. According to the report on automatic distribution of cases, the system could select only one judge, Pinkevych, as others were not available for different reasons. Demchyna filed five claims against MP Serhiy Leshchenko, TV channel ZIK, TV channel “112 Ukraina”,  journalist Dmytro Gnap, NGO “Slidstvo.Info”, JSC “National Public TV and Radio Company of Ukraine”, NGO “Hromadske TV”, JSC “TV and Radio company LUX”. Out of five claims of Demchyna, the courts already returned three as non-compliant with the requirements of the Civil Code of Practice of Ukraine. Pecherskyi district court of Kyiv now is considering three claims by Demchyna against Vitaliy Shabunin, Vitaliy Kasko and online media outlet “Holos.UA”. Two more Demchyna's claims against the MP Serhiy Leshchenko are considered in Podilskyi district court of Kyiv city. As IMI reported before, vice-head of the Security Service of Ukraine Pavlo Demchyna filed a claim to Podilskyi district court of Kyiv against the publishing house Media-DK, which publishes the magazine журнал “Novoye Vremia”. Demchyna demanded to refute information published by them that Demchyna is one of the people behind creation of the monopoly of companies affiliated with Viktor Medvedchuk on the market of liquefied gas. Vitaliy Shabunin is a co-defendant in this case. The editorial office of anti-corruption TV program of journalist investigations “Nashi Hroshi” received a request from Demchyna's attorney with a demand to give him personal details of journalists who were preparing story about him that was published. The media outlet considers this request related to investigation of Alisa Yurchenko “SBU banned nut export searching for worms”.