Three Strikes Against Press Freedom

By Olena Wawryshyn

Every year Freedom House, the non-profit American organization that promotes democracy around the world, publishes a survey entitled "Freedom of the Press: A Global Survey of Media Independence." The survey provides numerical rankings and rates each country’s media as “Free,” “Partly Free,” or “Not Free.” It also tracks changes in countries from year to year.

In 2004, Ukraine was listed as “Not Free” but, this year, due to changes brought on by the Orange Revolution, it has moved up to the “Partly Free” category. Yet, it is premature to rejoice at this improvement as in the past month alone three cases in which journalists, or their property, were the targets of violent attacks have come to light.

In mid-September, Mary Mycio, an American journalist and author of Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl, was attacked in her apartment building in Kyiv.  Reports in the American media said that after she answered a knock on her door, an unidentified man struck her on the head several times with a stone. She fought back, and her attacker fled.

After the attack, Ukrainian police said they had no information about a possible motive. But it is likely that it was instigated by individuals opposed to press freedom and to Mycio’s work in this area. Mycio is the director of the ProMedia Legal Defense and Education program for Ukrainian journalists, sponsored by the international non-profit group IREX.  One of the missions of IREX is to promote an independent media worldwide.

Another attack on a female journalist, Natalya Vlasova, took place in early October. Vlasova, a reporter for 34 Kanal, a television station in the eastern industrial city of Dnipropetrovsk, was hospitalized after she was beaten in the street. Vlasanova’s attacker did not rob her, but warned her to stop “poking her nose” into the affairs of the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) Party, headed by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. 

The local press reported that, for 10 days, an anonymous caller had threatened to harm her and her family.  Vlasova reported the threats to police the day before she was beaten.

She was apparently investigating the local branch of the Party, though her editor said Vlasova was likely conducting the investigation on her own initiative, because he had not assigned such a story.

It has not been proven whether the attack was instigated by someone who is affiliated with the Fatherland Party or who wants to discredit the Party, but there seems to be no question that the attack was politically motivated.

The third incident took place in Kyiv, a few days before the one in Dnipropetrovsk. On September 30, a home-made bomb was thrown into the car of Lebanese-born Walid Harfouch, the managing editor of the Ukrainian celebrity magazine Paparazzi. 

On September 22, the Kyiv Post revealed that an upcoming Paparazzi cover story would be about President Victor Yushchenko’s son’s vacation in Turkey. As soon as news about the scheduled story got out, the magazine’s staff began receiving verbal pressure from officials, but they stuck with it.

Omar Harfouch, the magazine’s publisher, was previously the target of intimidation after publishing photos of Yushchenko’s son in February.  A month later, Yushchenko's son Andriy threatened him in the presence of witnesses in a Kyiv restaurant. Andriy was accompanied by bodyguards who openly displayed their firearms.

After the car-arson incident, Victor Yushchenko ordered an investigation. His press secretary stated that freedom of speech was important to the President and that he had not authorized anyone to contact the magazine. It is likely that, regardless of his desire to protect his son from the media’s glare, President Yushchenko is genuinely opposed to strong-arm tactics against journalists.

Nevertheless, one can’t help noting that these three violent incidents occurred in quick succession shortly after Yushchenko fired the Cabinet of Ministers. Two of them took place just after he signed a declaration of cooperation with his former arch-rival Victor Yanukovych. In signing this document, Yushchenko has possibly helped to create a political climate in which forces opposed to the cornerstones of democracy, such as a free press, have been emboldened.

Such forces, unfortunately, exist closer to home as well. According to the Freedom House 2005 report, “While press freedom registered important gains in some key countries in 2004, notable setbacks occurred in the United States and elsewhere in the Americas.” 

Ratings are determined by examining the legal environment; political influences on reporting; access to information; and economic pressures on content and the dissemination of news. In these rankings, compared with 2004, Canada fell from number 23 to 24 – lagging far behind Finland, Iceland and Sweden – all in the number-one spot, as the countries with the most free media.

“Even in established democracies, press freedom should not be taken for granted; it must be defended and nurtured,” concluded Freedom House Executive Director Jennifer Windsor in the survey.

Given the Freedom House statistics, it seems Ukrainian-Canadians interested in promoting and upholding democracy need to keep a close watch not only in developments in Ukraine, but those in Canada too.