(AP) – The head of a reporters watchdog group warned on Nov. 11 that some Ukrainian media was coming under growing pressure, but was heckled by some journalists about his ties to a controversial tabloid editor.
Robert Menard, head of the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, said that although Ukraine had enjoyed broad press freedom after last year’s Orange Revolution, the situation appeared to be deteriorating.
Menard cited a fire bomb attack in September on a car owned by his friend, celebrity tabloid editor Walid Harfouch, as one example. Harfouch claims the attack was linked to a photo expose on President Viktor Yushchenko’s son planned by the tabloid, called Paparazzi. Critics of the businessman suggest it was a publicity stunt.
Yushchenko, who has said press freedoms are one of the big accomplishments of his tenure, has ordered a high-level investigation into the attack which came ahead of the tabloid’s planned publication of photographs of Yushchenko’s son, Andriy, and his girlfriend.
Harfouch and his brother, Omar, who is the publisher of Paparazzi, claimed to have been threatened earlier about the photos, and complained that Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko was refusing to investigate.
Yushchenko’s son sparked a scandal this past summer when a Ukrainian Internet site reported on his allegedly lavish lifestyle, sparking an angry outburst from Yushchenko. The president later apologized.
Menard, who was accompanied by Walid and Omar Harfouch at the Nov. 11 news conference, also criticized the government for making no progress in identifying the organizer of the 2000 slaying of an Internet journalist, and criticized Yushchenko for refusing to meet with him.
Ukrainian journalists at Menard’s news conference heckled him and the Harfouch brothers over their objectivity, prompting Menard to fire back saying they must speak out against pressure on the media “even if is directed at people you don’t agree with.”
The journalists questioned Menard over his links with the brothers, and complained that the brothers weren’t providing names of who they claimed had threatened them. Journalists laughed loudly when the Harfouch brothers called for an independent parliamentary commission to investigate their complaints.
