A group of journalists and activists from the Stop Censorship movement set up an information tent outside the Interior Ministry main office on May 27, in hopes of spurring the police to investigate the assault of two of their colleagues a week ago.
On May 18
Olga Snitsarchuk, a correspondent for Channel 5, and Vlad Sodel, a photographer
of Kommersant Ukraine newspaper, were attacked by a group of men during political
rallies in Kyiv.
The men who
attacked the journalists were later identified as enforcers hired by the ruling
Party of Regions. Thanks to crowdsourcing on social networks, journalists tracked
down the main suspect, Vadym Titushko, who was arrested by the police in the
days following the rallies but later released on bail.
Journalists
fear police have little interest in investigating the case, and so decided to
act. Some of them plan to stay overnight in the tent to be able to inform passers-by
around the clock of the police investigation and their findings.
Stop Censorship movement coordinator Natalia
Sokolenko said the tent will be “an everyday reminder for the policemen about
their duty to investigate facts of the attack, find the attackers and punish
those policemen who didn’t provide the secure order and didn’t prevent the
assault of journalists.”
Story by Oksana Grytsenko
