On Sept. 16, Ukrainian journalists marked the 20th anniversary of the murder of their colleague Georgiy Gongadze.
Gongadze, a political reporter and co-founder of Ukrainska Pravda, an online news outlet, was abducted and murdered on Sept. 16, 2000, by four police officials.
Although the perpetrators were eventually found and convicted, those who ordered the attack have remained unpunished. Soon after the murder, audiotapes surfaced in which then-President Leonid Kuchma told top subordinates that Gongadze had to be silenced. However, Kuchma faced charges only briefly in 2011, but has remained a prime suspect since then.
Gongadze’s murder shook Ukraine and undermined the presidency of Kuchma, who soon faced widespread protests to his authoritarian rule that lasted from 1994-2005. Other top officials of the Kuchma administration were implicated also on the hundreds of hours of audio recordings released by Kuchma bodyguard Mykola Melnychenko. They include former Kuchma chief of staff Volodymyr Lytvyn and former Security Service of Ukraine chief Leonid Derkach.
The failure to achieve justice in the Gongadze case, riddled by official obstruction and cover-ups, has contributed to a dangerous atmosphere for independent journalists in Ukraine, including other murders, physical assaults, harassment, and illegal surveillance.
See also: Dying for Truth, a series of stories about journalists murdered in Ukraine
To mark the 20th anniversary of the murder of Gongadze, Ukrainian journalists opened a memorial plaque installed on the building of the Union of Journalists in central Kyiv on 27A Khreshchatyk St. The plaque features a sculpture depicting Gongadze’s face and describes him as “a prominent journalist, activist, founder and chief editor of Ukraine’s first online news outlet, Ukrainska Pravda, who was abducted and murdered for his work.”
“I want us all to think — at least on the days like today — about the price that we are paying, and the price paid by Georgiy, Pavlo (Sheremet), and other journalists (who were killed),” Ukrainska Pravda’s chief editor Sevgil Musaeva said at the opening of the plaque.
At 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 17, Ukrainska Pravda will screen a new documentary about Gongadze at the outdoor theater in Mariinsky Park (3 Parkova Road) in Kyiv. The screening is in Ukrainian.
