Dozens of Ukrainian citizens, including many journalists, turned out on Sept. 16 to commemorate those Ukrainian journalists who have died because of their work since the country’s independence in 1992.
The event, part of an
“Impunity Kills” campaign by a number of
media watchdog groups, was held 13 years to the day of the disappearance,
kidnapping and murder of Ukraine’s most famous journalist. Georgiy Gongadze, whose
headless body was found in a forest south of Kyiv that autumn, was the founder
of the prominent independent online news website Ukrainska Pravda.
More than 100 people lit
candles and held signs adorned with Gongadze’s silhouette as his name and the
names of other Ukrainian journalists murdered were read aloud during the
memorial event held at Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv.
In a video message from her
home in Washington D.C., Gongadze’s widow, Voice of America journalist and host
Myroslava Gongadze said, that “the killing of Georgiy wasn’t our family’s
tragedy, but rather a tragedy of the whole journalistic community of Ukraine.”
Myroslava Gongadze also pleaded
to the public to keep pressuring Ukraine’s authorities for further prosecutions
involving her husband’s death, noting that only those who committed the crime
had been jailed while those who ordered the murder remain free. “We shouldn’t
keep silent, because silence won’t protect us,” she said.
On Jan. 29, the Pechersk District Court in Kyiv convicted the former
chief of the Interior Ministry’s surveillance department, Olekjiy Pukach, of
killing Gongadze and sentenced him to life in prison. Three other police
officers were sentenced earlier for their involvement in the killing.
Ex-President Leonid Kuchma remains
under criminal investigation, suspected of ordering the murder, a charge he has
consistently denied. Audio recordings secretly made by his bodyguard, Mykola
Melnychenko, from 1999-2000 allegedly reveal Kuchma and top aides conspiring
against the investigative journalist. Officials implicated have denied the
authenticity of the tapes.
Kyiv Post editor Christopher J. Miller can
be reached at [email protected], and on Twitter at @ChristopherJM. Kyiv Post staff writer Daryna Shevchenko
contributed to this report.
