Yuzhnoukrainsk officials tried to prevent "NikVesti" filming crew from attending a City Council meeting
Yuzhnoukrainsk officials tried to prevent reporter Olena Kozubovska and cameraman Serhiy Ovcharyshyn from the Mykolaiv online media "NykVesty" from entering the building where an unscheduled City Council meeting was taking place. The police found no violations on the part of the journalists, so the journalists were allowed to the meeting and recorded it.
The incident took place on September 5, reports the IMI representative in Mykolaiv oblast.
Yuzhnoukrainsk deputies held a meeting to re-elect the City Council secretary and acting mayor.
At the beginning of the meeting, some deputies started obstructing the work of "NikVesti" journalists: namely, Angela Savastru, who represents the banned party OPFL and is the deputy CEO of the South Ukrainian NPP. She called the police and asked them to keep the media workers away from the hall.
The deputy argued that the journalists "had no proper credentials" and that the meeting was supposed to be held behind closed doors.
The police, having looked into the situation, refused to commit unlawful actions as requested by the deputy, so the journalists were allowed to attend the meeting.
"The organizers stressed that the session was off-limits and we had no right to be there. Later, they started threatening to call the police and tried to prevent us from entering the hall where the meeting was taking place. The deputy emphasized that she had rented premises in the local cultural center "Energetik" with her own money, therefore, if we want to stay there, we would have to pay the rent. A team of investigators was summoned to the scene, but after its arrival, the deputy refused to file a statement," journalist Olena Kozubovska told IMI.
IMI representatives contacted the main office of the National Police in Mykolaiv oblast, who confirmed that the incident had taken place, but the deputy refused to file a statement against the journalists in the end.
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