The freedom of speech committee in the Verkhovna Rada on Oct. 28 revoked accreditation from investigative journalists of the award-winning Slidstvo.Info media outlet because their work allegedly “does not meet the purpose of the accreditation.”
But after a public outcry, the speaker of the parliament, Dmytro Razumkov, asked the Verkhovna Rada press service to cancel the decision, his press secretary wrote on Facebook.
The decision was an unprecedented move against investigative journalists.
During an Oct. 28 session, the committee deprived 22 media outlets, including Slidstvo.Info, of entrance to the Verkhovna Rada for allegedly “not covering parliament accurately and regularly.” While several of the outlets are well-regarded, many are largely unknown, raising the possibility that they were included to distract attention from the committee’s targeting of media like Slidstvo.Info.
In fact, Slidstvo.Info has written over 40 stories involving the parliament since it was elected in July 2019, chief editor Anna Babinets told the Kyiv Post. Among them were investigations uncovering lawmakers’ corrupt actions or undeclared assets.
“This is simply a sign of direct censorship,” said Oksana Romaniuk, executive director at the Institute of Mass Information (IMI), a Kyiv-based media watchdog.
Romaniuk called the decision of the committee illegal and said that she “has never seen anything like this in all the years of (Ukraine’s) independence.”
Censorship attempt?
The committee decision came after Slidstvo.Info published a handful of investigations involving lawmakers.
Slidstvo.Info launched a special project aimed at revealing information about lawmakers’ non-paid advisers, something that had been kept secret in the past. They also reported on how lawmakers sell their votes and what real estate they own abroad.
In May, Slidstvo.Info enraged a controversial lawmaker of the ruling Servant of The People faction, Oleksandr Dubinsky, when it reported about him attempting to acquire Romanian citizenship in violation of a Ukrainian law that bans dual citizenship.
Babinets called this committee decision an attack by government agencies on freedom of speech and pressure on the independent media.
Slidstvo.Info will bring this issue to the attention of international organizations, Babinets said.
Parliament’s press service
In an official letter sent to Slidstvo.Info, parliament’s press service stated that the media outlet does not meet the purpose of accreditation, which is “comprehensive, objective and balanced coverage“ of the activities of the Verkhovna Rada.
Babinets believes that quality investigative journalism does precisely this.
Another reason for revoking accreditation from Slidstvo.Info was that the outlet supposedly does not cover the parliament’s activities enough.
In the letter, the press service says that, back in September, it sent a request to Slidstvo.Info asking them to report back and list the stories they wrote about the Verkhovna Rada since 2019.
Babinets said Slidstvo.Info did not receive such a request. Moreover, they would not comply with this request as she believes that monitoring the media coverage is part of the press service’s job.
“We will not send them this list. If the press service does not want to do their job, we won’t do it for them,” she told the Kyiv Post. On Oct. 28, Slidstvo.Info published an article on their website listing some of the recent stories on parliament that they wrote.
Obliging journalists to provide the parliament’s press service with lists of the stories they have done is illegal, said Romaniuk.
“It is illegal to demand that the media provide a list of stories involving the Verkhovna Rada. This is not required by the law and giving or depriving a journalist of accreditation cannot depend on their efficiency,” she said.
The decision
According to the IMI, the committee’s decision violated numerous laws.
One is the law “On information,” which states that a journalist can be deprived of accreditation only in three cases: when he or she requests it, when his or her media outlet requests it and when a journalist repeatedly violates his or her duties.
The case of Slidstvo.Info does not fit any of these categories.
Moreover, by law, it is only possible to revoke the accreditation of a journalist, not of the entire media outlet.
In its letter to Slidstvo.Info, the parliament’s press service referred to the law on “the obligatory copy of the document” to justify its demand for a list of stories.
Ali Safarov, a lawyer at IMI, said that this law does not require a journalist to report back to government authorities about stories covering a state agency that accredited the journalist.
However, four out of five members of the freedom of speech committee voted in support of the decision to void Slidstvo.Info’s accreditation and, apparently, saw no legal issues in the decision.
Four of the lawmakers on the freedom of speech committee are members of the ruling Servant of The People faction. The head of the committee represents the pro-Russian Opposition Platform — For Life party.
It remains unclear which one of them voted against the decision.
After the news broke, Servant of The People lawmaker Oleskandr Sanchenko, a member of the committee, wrote on Facebook that the parliament’s press service had “misled” the committee members.
“The press service of the Verkhovna Rada gave us a long list of journalists who, they said, do not report about the parliament,” he wrote. “I had no reason not to trust the Verkhovna Rada’s press service.”
Sanchenko added that he would initiate a meeting between the journalists and the committee members.
Meanwhile, the IMI is preparing a statement condemning the committee’s actions. The organization will also file a complaint to the police.
“We will demand that law enforcement agencies initiate criminal proceedings under Article 171 as there is unequivocally an obstacle to lawful professional activity,” Romaniuk said.
Editor’s Note: This report is part of the Investigative Hub project, within which the Kyiv Post team monitors investigative reports in the Ukrainian media and brings them to the English-speaking audience. The project is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy.
