Court warrants giving the Prosecutor General’s Office access to the cell phone data of two prominent journalists have triggered concerns over a mounting crackdown on free speech in the run-up to the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections.
The rulings against Natalie Sedletska, the chief editor of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Schemes investigative television show, and Kristina Berdynskykh, a journalist at the Novoye Vremya magazine, have triggered strong criticism by Ukrainian civic activists, journalists and Western officials. The Prosecutor General’s Office denied intentions to restrict the freedom of speech.
“We are concerned that yesterday’s court decision regarding investigative reporter Natalia Sedletska could have a chilling effect on press freedom and anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine,” the U. S. Embassy in Ukraine said on Sept. 5. “Ukrainian authorities should support independent journalism.”
European Union spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said on the same day that the decision raised serious questions and that court decisions should not violate journalists’ rights, including the protection of their sources.
RFE/RL has published numerous investigative reports about top officials, including Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, President Petro Poroshenko, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and other top officials.
Meeting with Sytnyk
Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court on Aug. 27 gave the prosecutor’s office access to records of Sedletska’s cell phone data for the past 17 months, according to the official court register.
The move is part of a case against Artem Sytnyk, head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. Sytnyk is accused of divulging a state secret by leaking information to journalists.
The secret, which was allegedly leaked by Sytnyk at a meeting with journalists in May 2017, concerns an unlawful enrichment case against a top prosecutor, Kostyantyn Kulik.
Kulik was charged with unlawful enrichment of Hr 2 million in 2016, but has not been suspended or fired since then.
Journalists Kristina Berdynskykh (L) and Natalie Sedletska (R) pose for a group photo with their colleagues at the MezhyhiryaFest journalism conference near Kyiv on June 10, 2017. Both suffered an intrusion into their professional and personal lives when prosecutors got access to their phone records for 17 months as part of a criminal investigation where both are witnesses. (Facebook/Natalie Sedletska)
RFE/RL’s lawyer Anatoly Popov said on Sept. 4 that the prosecutors’ actions “violate human rights and respect for privacy” and constitute “pressure on a journalist as part of their professional activities and illegal access to a journalist’s sources of information.”
Popov said that the court had given the investigators much more information than necessary — not just the phone calls log in May 2017, when the meeting between Sytnyk and journalists allegedly took place, but records of calls placed over the past 17 months, as well as her texts and location records.
Meanwhile, Sytnyk said on Sept. 5 that the NABU’s leadership could be arrested in the run-up to the 2019 presidential elections.
“This is an attempt to get rid of Sytnyk,” Tetiana Popova, an ex-deputy information policy minister, told the Kyiv Post. “I think they’re also interested in the sources with whom Natalia met over these one and a half years.”
Lutsenko’s spokeswoman Larysa Sargan said on Sept. 5 that a court had also given the Prosecutor General’s Office access to the phone records of Novoye Vremya journalist Berdynskykh as part of the Sytnyk case.
Prosecutors react
Commenting on the decision on Sedletska, Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the Prosecutor General’s Office, said on Sept. 4 that the move was necessary to identify the time, date and location of the alleged information leak.
He claimed that this date could be somewhere between the time when the wiretapping of Kulik’s common-law wife Iryna Nimets ended and when the Sytnyk case was opened.
Lysenko said that the prosecutors had not gotten access to the content of conversations and text messages and argued that the court warrant did not constitute interference in Sedletska’s professional activities.
Meanwhile, Lutsenko said on Sept. 5 that Sedletska had refused to identify the date of her meeting with Sytnyk. Commenting on the accusations, Sedletska said that she had a right under the law not to disclose her sources.
Sedletska also that Lutsenko had asked for an off-the-record meeting with her to explain the situation. She refused, however, saying she would only meet for an on-the-record interview.
Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko (R) shows his phone to U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton during the Independence Day military parade in Kyiv on Aug. 24. (UNIAN)
Previous cases
The rulings against Sedletska and Berdynskykh are not the first threat faced by media in Ukraine.
In June the Verkhovna Rada included in its agenda a bill that would grant prosecutors and the National Security and Defense Council powers to block websites they deem threatening to national security — without a court ruling. On Sept. 5, the legislation was sent back to its sponsors by the Rada’s information committee for revision.
In January the Security Service of Ukraine said that prosecutors had opened a case against journalist Oleksandr Dubinsky, accusing him of misinforming citizens about security threats. Oleh Hladkovsky, a Poroshenko associate and a deputy secretary of the National Defense and Security Council, had previously asked the SBU to open a case against Dubinsky on high treason charges.
Dubinsky sees it as payback for his investigations into Hladkovsky’s alleged businesses in Russia and his alleged graft schemes, whose existence is denied by Hladkovsky.
Meanwhile, Igor Guzhva, the chief editor of the Strana.ua news site, said in January that he had left for Austria and asked for political asylum. Guzhva, whose Strana.ua site is highly critical of Poroshenko, faces five criminal cases in Ukraine and was released on bail in 2017 after being charged with extortion.
In September the SBU also opened a criminal case into an Ukrainska Pravda article on defense corruption, accusing the online newspaper of divulging a state secret.
Another journalist, Ruslan Kotsaba, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for urging people to evade the draft in 2016 and was declared by Amnesty International to be a prisoner of conscience. He was later released by an appellate court and acquitted.
However, in August the Security Service of Ukraine re-opened the treason case against him.
TV journalist Savik Shuster, a critic of Poroshenko, had faced a tax evasion case, problems with cable providers and the temporary cancellation of his work permit before his 3sTV channel stopped operations altogether in 2017.
