These words were in a video statement made for participants of the round table discussion in Kyiv “Democracy: The Ukrainian Way” on February 3th by Myroslava Gongadze, the widow of the murdered Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze.
Since her husband was kidnapped and killed in 2000, Myroslava and her children live in the United States. For more than a decade, she has been working as a TV producer at the Ukrainian department of Voice of America (VOA).
Many remember the latest massive journalistic uprise in 2004, during the peaceful Orange revolution, which forced pro-Western reformer Victor Yushchenko into presidency. In those times, the majority of Ukrainian journalists were excited. And they hoped that press freedom, granted by the “good President” Yushchenko, will last forever.
“Despite Yushchenko’s loyalty to democratic principles and his liberalism towards the press – journalists’ activities were more like Brownian motion without clear principles,” said Myroslava, in her February statement.
Many media experts have similar opinions about the situation with the Ukrainian journalists and the level of journalism in Ukraine. Earlier in December, in an interview with the international radio PCJ Media (its text published in my blog) I said:
“Viktor Yuschenko really granted the freedom of press, but the problem was that majority of journalists in Ukraine were not ready to continue to develop this, develop trade unions and associations. They simply did not accept press freedom seriously. It was like – “OK, now we have press freedom and a good President, so we can relax”. This relaxed attitude resulted in postponing the creation of Public TV & Radio. That was a kind of a mistake – to stop fighting for professional freedom further. Additionally, journalists actually do not fully see the strategic directions they could go”.
Some days ago Mrs. Gongadze criticized Ukraine again. This time she put her eye on a young women’s rights group FEMEN, which is known for their public protests in the nude.
Due to this, the group often grabs foreign media attention, which harms Ukraine’s reputation abroad. As for Myroslava, the popularity of such a group confirms that the morality in Ukraine has decreased to the lowest levels yet.
"If they would protest in the nude in the US, they would be arrested in minutes for public indecency. It’s time to stop this exhibitionism [in Ukraine]”, she wrote on her Facebook page. (Meantime, in 2009 Ukraine has already showed an example of punishment for public indecency – towards a blogger from Eastern city Luhansk.
The blogger being nude with his girlfriend imitated the sexual intercourse in front of the Parliament building. He was arrested and jailed for 4 years).
In the last few months, Mrs. Gongadze significantly intensified her attention towards Ukraine, using social media along with VOA’s TV programs "Chas / Time" at Ukraine’s Channel 5.
Also, her political and civil activism connected to the finishing phase of a decade-run criminal process about murdering her husband. Local media and politicians have already responded to Myroslava. For example, President Yushchenko’s former press secretary, presently a member of Parliament Iryna Gerashchenko urged MPs to defend Mrs. Gongadze’s rights in a husband related process against high-ranked murderers.
Viktor Kovalenko is a public relations and communications professional. You can read his blog entries at http://viktorkovalenko.blogspot.com/
