In Novy Sanzhary (Poltava region), unknown persons broke on September 23 into the house of Viktor Valiayev, a journalist, ex-chief of the correspondence department and photo-correspondent of the regional newspaper, and his wife and beat them up.

The unconscious parents were discovered by their daughter.

New data within Georgiy Gongadze case

15.09.2008 State officials, known to have impeded the investigation into the Gongadze case, have been either awarded or promoted, IMI Director Viktoria Siumar told today’s press conference. Mykhailo Potebenko, ex-Prosecutor General of Ukraine, was awarded the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, while Judge Maria Pryndiuk was promoted to an administrative position in the Kyiv appellate court.

No steps are currently being taken to establish the masterminds ordering to kill the journalist, Valentyna Telychenko, Myroslava Gongadze’s lawyer, said.

16.09.2008 According to one of the key leads in the Georgiy Gongadze case, the crime was concocted by high-ranking state officials, Deputy Prosecutor General Mykola Holomsha told journalists.

Criminal proceedings could be instituted against certain persons once the copies of the recordings, provided by witness Mykola Melnychenko, the voices and statements recorded are authenticated under the law, said Mr. Holomsha.

The original recordings and the recording devices, used to make them, have to be seized and examined by international experts, says the representative of the Prosecutor’s General Office of Ukraine. The examination of the copies of the recordings is almost completed, the deputy prosecutor general said.

One of the leading European expert institutions has confirmed to the Prosecutor’s General Office of Ukraine it will take part in the recordings authentication procedures, Deputy Prosecutor General Holomsha said. Oleksiy Pukach, one of the alleged killers of journalist Georgiy Gongadze, is still wanted by police, he said.

16.09.2008 The major goal of the special operation, in which journalist Georgiy Gongadze was killed, was to launch certain processes in Ukraine to overthrow the then President Leonid Kuchma’s regime, Gazeta Po-Ukrainsky quotes Member of Ukraine’s Parliament Vasyl Hrytsak (the Regions party) as saying.

US special services held an operation killing journalist Georgiy Gongadze to instigate certain processes in Ukraine to overthrow President Leonid Kuchma’s regime, MP Hrytsak said.

“It was a mere incident that Gongadze was picked as a victim. Any other popular journalist could have been in his place”, Mr. Hrytsak said.

He has never claimed the murder was planned by Leonid Kuchma’s regime, MP Hrytsak said.

There is no chance for proper investigation into the case, the Member of Parliament also said.

Mr. Hrytsak does not believe the evidence given by the perpetrators, who killed the journalist and were later given different jail sentences, as they were highly contradictory. He says the trial in the Gongadze case lacked adequate press coverage, and the public was not informed on the progress in the case.

“They should have given at least some information to Members of Parliament and journalists after the trial so that they could disseminate it to people”, the InterMedia Consulting information agency quotes the MP as saying.

23.09.2008 Oleksand Moroz, the leader of the Socialist party of Ukraine, still believes ex-President Leonid Kuchma to be connected to the Georgiy Gongadze case, he told journalists before being interrogated on Tuesday by the investigators of the Prosecutor’s General Office of Ukraine.

When asked whether he still considered Leonid Kuchma to be connected to the killing of journalist Georgiy Gongadze, Mr. Moroz said:

“If you check all the protocols of the parliamentary sittings and all my articles and interviews, you will never see me using the word “killing” about Kuchma and his connection (to the murder of the journalist - IMI). I said he was connected to the abduction of Gongadze. I ordered to investigate it and had the investigation under my personal control. That’s true”, he said.

He still trusts ex-State Guard Major Mykola Melnychenko, Mr. Moroz said. The leader of the Socialist party urged all the parties to speed up the authentication of the recordings, provided by Mykola Melnychenko, at the international level.

“There are no grounds to doubt the material of the recordings in case of the original recordings. I am not going to comment on Melnychenko’s actions. He did what he did. But he offers totally objective things. There is no chance for the case to be solved until the Prosecutor’s General Office uses (as evidence)if not the recordings, then at least the facts recorded”, Mr. Moroz said.

Mr. Moroz insists the Prosecutor’s General Office of Ukraine “has been pretending” for eight years to avoid efficient investigation into the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze.

The investigator had called Mr. Moroz the evening before, he said, and asked to arrive at the Prosecutor’s Office the following day, Tuesday. The SPU leader agreed. The investigator had not specified the reason for the interrogation, Mr. Moroz said.

“I believe all circumstances to be quite clear. In fact, the case had been solved before it was actually started. If they wished, they could have solved it long ago”, Mr. Moroz said.

“In my opinion, it has not been eight years of investigation, but imitation of investigation, which has been obviously impeded by the authorities, top-ranking authorities”, the leader of the Socialist party said.

Mr. Moroz said he would answer all of the investigator’s questions, doubting though “he could say anything new”.

“Just consider, too many persons, involved in the case, have died, all of them in a rather peculiar way. If we speak about establishing the truth, the Prosecutor’s General Office should get interested in this fact too. But since they have been doing their best to imitate the investigation, we have to listen to the same questions like “How were the recordings made?” I don’t give a damn – ask Major Melnychenko, he’ll tell you”, Mr. Moroz said.

23.09.2008 General Oleksiy Pukach, ex-chief of the Surveillance Department of the Interior Ministry of Ukraine, pursued by Ukrainian law-enforcement bodies over the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze, is allegedly living in the USA, UNIAN quotes Oleksandr Moroz, leader of the Socialist party of Ukraine, as saying.

Today, having been interrogated in the Gongadze case by the investigator of the Prosecutor’s General Office of Ukraine, Oleksandr Moroz told journalists about Oleksiy Pukach’s whereabouts, UNIAN reports. SPU’s leader Oleksandr Moroz said Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko should ask US President George W. Bush to authorize the authentication of the recordings, provided by Major Mykola Melnychenko, in the USA. “They (the recordings - IMI) have the facts on them that might cast light on the masterminds and organizers of the abduction and killing of Georgiy Gongadze”, said Mr. Moroz.

Journalists beaten, attacked, intimidated - 3

10.09.2008 Around seven persons tried to break into a flat, where Timur Dushko, editor-in-chief of the Irpinsky Visnyk newspaper, and his deputy were staying at that moment. The perpetrators almost broke the door and stopped only as they heard Mr. Dushko calling police. Later, the police registered the fact of the attempted breaking into the flat.

At the moment of the attack Timur Dushko was on sick leave, but he knew he had been sacked and another person had been appointed an acting editor-in-chief. Earlier, Mr. Dushko wrote a number of letters to the Irpin city council about the newspaper’s materials missing and salaries owed to journalists. Mr. Dushko was appointed as editor-in-chief in April 2008.

The editor-in-chief has left the flat and is planning to officially address the law-enforcement bodies.

16.09.2008 Maksym Abramovsky, Ostriv’s journalist, deputy chair of the Donetsk Independent Media Union, and his colleague Olena Mykhailova were beaten in Donetsk.

The journalists were shooting footage in the outskirts of Donetsk for their own investigation. They shot policemen stopping cars on the bridge, which is a gross violation of the traffic rules, to check the license. As they noticed the journalists, the policemen asked for their IDs, Telekritika quotes Maksym Abramovsky as saying. The journalists showed their journalistic certificates and a certificate of an assistant to a Member of Parliament. As the journalists asked the policemen to introduce themselves, the latter threatened them with violence using foul language. Maksym Abramovsky’s journalistic certificate was seized. The entire incident was filmed. The journalists warned the policemen about legal responsibility and asked them to stop humiliating them. Instead they were told: “I will shoot you”.

Maksym Abramovsky says a person got out of the car not far from the scene demanding to give him the camera. As the journalist refused to do so, this person hit Maksym Abramovsky and started to strangle him while the policemen were hitting his head and camera. They finally seized it to later return it broken with the tape missing.

Olena Mykhailova said she had tried to call police. “As they were actually strangling Maksym, I tried to dial 02 (the police telephone number in Ukraine - IMI). But they started twisting my arms, trying to take away my phone”, Ostrov’s journalist said.

As another police unit arrived at the scene, the journalists filed a complaint and commented on the situation. As Maksym Abramovsky and Olena Mykhailova arrived at the Kyivsky district police department of Donetsk, they saw the policeman and the person in private clothes they had had the conflict with. “We were not allowed to officially identify these persons though I pointed at them”, the journalist said.

Maskym Abramovsky remains in hospital at the moment.

No criminal proceedings have ever been instituted on the assault. Maksym Abramovsky says the results of the police inquiry have been passed to the city prosecutor.

23.09.2008 Oleksandr Nazareskul, journalist of the Narodna Varta newspaper, says he was attacked and beaten by unknown persons as he was investigating activities of Mykola Stukach, the governor of Novosilky village (Vyshgorod region), the journalist told yesterday’s press-conference at UNIAN.

Oleksandr Nazareskul worked on an independent journalistic investigation after the newspaper had received information on illegal activities of the Novosilky governor.

On August 14, when the journalist and several volunteers from the newspaper arrived at the village of Novosilky to continue the investigation, the unknown persons attacked them trying to impede them to practice journalistic profession, Oleksandr Nazareskul said.

“A black car drove up, two young men got out of it and started intimidating us, trying to oust us out of the village saying that journalists were not exactly popular in the village of Novosilky and that they did not want us to cover the village life”, he said.

The journalist says, trying to avoid the conflict, he took decision to leave the village and headed to his car.

“But the same car blocked the road several meters farther. The same young men got out of it. I got out of the car too to ask them to let us drive by, but they refused to do so. I stressed again I was a journalist of the Narodna Varta newspaper, which made them laugh. They told me to give away all the copies of the newspaper. I naturally refused. So they started hitting my head and body. As a result, I lost consciousness, and the young men took all the copies of our newspaper from our car and left”, the journalist said.

The journalist plans to inform the law-enforcements agencies on all facts of illegal activities of the Novosilky village governor he has discovered.

The journalist has drawn up an appeal to the law-enforcement agencies based on the facts of illegal activities of the governor of Novosilky village, demanding to institute criminal proceedings against him, and to the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council asking the latter to personally control the case of Mykola Stukach, whose activities not only “kill press freedom in the state, but also threaten Ukraine’s security”.

New data on journalists beaten, attacked, intimidated

01.09.2008 MP Olga Herasymyuk (the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense bloc) filed a parliamentary inquiry to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Medvedko demanding to launch an inquiry into an incident that took place on August 21 in Simferopol on the premises of the State TV and Radio Company Krym. On that day, Communists broke into the studio of the TV company and disrupted a Ukraine-NATO TV show, the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense site reports.

“The Krym TV channel planned on August 21 to host the Green Corridor debates on the relations of Ukraine and NATO, featuring representatives of different political parties, non-governmental organizations, political experts, journalists, military staff, Members of Crimean Parliament and Chair of the Simferopol city organization of the Our Ukraine party Volodymyr Kuntsov.

“The Communists, however, headed by one of the top members of the Crimean parliament Vyacheslav Zakharov and supported by Member of Ukraine’s Parliament Maryna Perestenko, first blockaded the entrance to the Krym office and then broke into the company, occupied the studio and tried to have the show gone live. As a result, the TV show was disrupted.

“The incident had obviously been previously planned, as the Communist activists were filming it. Several minors were also involved in the incident.

“Similar campaigns against Krym had been held by the Communists early. As no adequate reaction followed, more hooliganism followed”, Olga Herasymyuk said in her statement.

MP Herasymyuk asked the Prosecutor General of Ukraine to institute criminal proceedings against the offenders and law-enforcement agents who had not taken any action to prevent the disruption of the TV show.

19.09.2008 MP Olga Herasymyuk (the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense bloc) received a response to the parliamentary inquiry she had filed on September 1 to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Medvedko. In her inquiry, MP Herasymyuk asked the Prosecutor General to ensure adequate investigation into the incident which had taken place on August 21 in Simferopol on the premises of the State TV and Radio Company Krym, spokespeople for the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense bloc report.

“The Prosecutor General of Ukraine has ordered Prosecutor General of Crimea Volodymyr Boyko to launch an investigation into the case”, the MP says.

On August 21, a group of Crimean Communists, lead by MP Leonid Hrach, disrupted a live show of the Krym TV channel and used force against journalists.

Ms. Herasymyuk said: “Under the shelter of parliamentary immunity, top Member of Crimean Parliament Vyacheslav Zakharov and Member of Ukrainian Parliament Maryna Perestenko disrupted a live TV show on the prospects of Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration”.

Impediment to practice journalistic profession, censorship - 1

04.09.2008 The Sportynva Gazeta newspaper became a target of a raider attack, says Sportyvna Gazeta’s editor-in-chief Ludmyla Movchan.

The newspaper’s audience will not receive tomorrow’s issue as the newspaper has fallen prey to the raiders, she said.

“On September 1 evening, as we had drafted Tuesday’s issue, the unknown persons entered the office, where the director and me were staying, and ordered us to leave. We still do not know who they were. We even cannot take our possessions and computers”, the editor-in-chief said.

Ludmyla Movchan, who has worked in Sportyvna Gazeta for over 41 years, is convinced the target of the attack was not the office (located in a rented private apartment), but the newspaper brand.

“Sportyvna Gazeta is one of Ukraine’s oldest sport editions. The first issue was published on April 18, 1934 in Kharkiv. The newspaper was called Krasny Sport then. Later, it moved to Kyiv adopting the name Radiansky Sport in 1949. It has had the present name since 1965. The newspaper is published under the agreement with the Ministry for Family, Youth and Sport. It is a partner of the National Olympic Committee. Great many journalists, heading other sport editions today, began their career in the newspaper. And as it turned 75 years old, our readers will not receive the newspaper”, said Ludmyla Movchan. She believes persons close to sport could be connected to the raider attack “as neither oil businesses, nor gas businesses would be interested in this edition”.

The Ministry for Family, Youth and Sport denies comment so far. The ministry has launched an inquiry into the situation, Telekritika quotes spokespeople for the ministry as saying. Editor-in-chief Ludmyla Movchan is currently staying in hospital. The source of the attack remains unknown.

Sixteen-page, full-color Sportyvna Gazeta was published twice a week (on Tuesdays and Fridays).

Legal actions started by mass media and journalists - 0

New data on legal actions started by mass media and journalists

02.09.2008 Another litigant appeared in the case of the Ladyzhinsky Gazeta’s editor-in-chief vs. the city council – Mayor of Ladyzhin V. Kolomiytsev.

The case of the editor-in-chief of Ladyzhinska Gazeta (Ladyzhin, Vinnytsia region) E. Kosiak vs. the executive committee of the Ladyzhin city council was heard on September 2, 2008. The litigants failed to meet halfway. The court granted the motion of the plaintiff demanding to involve Ladyzhin mayor Kolomiytsev as co-defendant in the case.

The editor-in-chief filed a lawsuit against the executive committee of the Ladyzhyn city council and the mayor of Ladyzhin, accusing them of systematically ignoring his information inquiries. The case is to be heard on September 19.

Legal actions against mass media and journalists – 0

New data on legal actions against mass media and journalists

24.09.2008 The Mykolayiv regional appellate court found Volodymyr Lutyev, the editor-in-chief of the Yevpatoriyskaya Nedelia newspaper, known for his critical materials, not guilty on all charges. This verdict, unprecedented for Ukraine, followed six years of the struggle of Parliament Ombudsperson Nina Karpachova for the constitutional rights of this brave person, who had challenged the lies of the police, prosecution and judicial systems of Ukraine.

Volodymyr Lutyev, the editor-in-chief of Yevpatoriyskaya Nedelia, was arrested in autumn 2002 on suspicion of preparing an attempt on the life of one of the then Members of Crimean Parliament. Volodymyr Lutyev and his Crimean colleagues Liliya Budjurova and Volodymyr Prytula appealed to the Verkhovna Rada’ Ombudsperson Nina Karpachova, who did her utmost to protect the journalist in the following six years. Nina Karpachova has said: “Representatives of the law-enforcement agencies used Volodymyr Lutyev to try a new low method of fighting press freedom – without actually killing him, they planned to destroy the journalist with life sentence based on the made up charges in committing a grave offense”.

Volodymyr Lutyev (a disabled person of group II) was kept in one of the worst cells of the Simferopol police temporary detention facilities. In 2005, he was handed the Parliament Ombudsperson’s Award – For Courage right in the detention facility. In summer 2006, the Sevastopol appellate court sentenced Volodymyr Lutyev to eight years in jail with seizure of property, ordering the journalist to pay 100 thousand hryvnias of moral damages to one of the Members of Crimean Parliament, who, according to Nina Karpachova, had hired police staff to stage the life attempt. 

The Supreme Court of Ukraine however, persuaded by Ombudsperson Nina Karpachova’s reasons, recalled the judgment of the Sevastopol appellate court. Volodymyr Lutyev was released in the court hall, while this high-profile case was passed to the Mykolayiv regional appellate court, which on September 17, 2008 issued the not-guilty verdict.

The court said in the verdict: “Reasonable are the claims of the defendant that the majority of the primary investigative actions were performed by UBOZ (Directorate for Combating Organized Crime - IMI) officials, charged at that time in the cases where Volodymyr Lutyev was a victim. It is confirmed by the documents enclosed with the criminal case materials, which proves the intention of the abovementioned persons to cause the criminal proceedings to be instituted against Volodymyr Lutyev as revenge”.

24.09.2008 The Kyiv appellate court changed a part of the judgment issued by the Desniansky district court in the case of Chair of the Consulting Board of the EDAPS Consortium Yuri Sydorenko vs. the Blitz-Inform Company, the Business newspaper and Business’ journalist Maksym Birovash, Telekritika quotes Maksym Birovash’ representative Oleksandr Burmagin as saying.

The plaintiff’s claim for moral damages was rejected. The plaintiff sought 22mn hryvnias to be paid by Blitz-Inform, 5 thousand hryvnias by Maksym Birovash and 5 thousand hryvnias by Sergiy Kobyshev, the former editor of Business. The court however recognized as valid a part of the judgment of the Desniansky district court, which ordered the edition to publish a denial and banned the use of the plaintiff’s photos. The court also ordered the plaintiff to pay 1mn 250 thousand hryvnias of litigation expenses as Blitz-Inform had filed an appeal.

“As a full text of the court judgment is published, specifically the reasoning part, we will take decision whether to appeal a still effective part of the judgment”, Oleksandr Burmagin told Telekritika. The journalist and the edition carried out a conscientious journalistic investigation based on documents.

The Desniansky district court issued the judgment on May 23, 2008. In November 2007, Yuri Sydorenko filed a lawsuit against Blitz-Inform seeking 46mn hryvnias and paid the state duty of 4,6mn hryvnias.

Journalist Maksym Birovash published his journalistic investigation on the Ukrainian passport system issue in Business.

Economic, political, indirect pressure - 1

11.09.2008 "The office of the national web portal Aratta. Window to Ukraine has been suffering a DDoS attack for six days now.

Unfortunately, multi-level DDoS (Distributed Denial Of Service Attack) technologies make it virtually impossible to trace down a server of cyber-terrorists as hundreds of computers from around the world have been used to attack the portal. The technical level and implementation of the DDoS attack are high enough to make it clear it is not another assault carried out by an Internet hooligan, but a well-prepared intended campaign, obviously aimed at cutting off an inconvenient information source. The fact the DDoS attack is efficiently managed is also demonstrated by a number of false requests varying all the time, which means they are directed by an operator. According to experts, a massive DDoS attack might cost some $2000 per day.

We consider this DDoS attack to be produced by special services to hush up an independent information resource, not controlled by any clan or political group, not afraid to criticize top-ranking officials for their unfair activities. It seems obvious that this information resource, beyond the control of any governmental or oligarchic structures, has fallen prey to the attack as its information policies cannot be impacted by traditional methods.

Among others, the attack could have been caused by the edition’s criticism of Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko and his team who have forgotten about common sense, lacking adequate perception of the present reality.

We have presented specific facts more than once demonstrating ties of the Regions party, Communist party of Ukraine, Progressive Socialists party of Ukraine and some other political parties with secret services of the Russian Federation and have publicly asked the President, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine and the Chief of the Security Service of Ukraine to consider these facts and to legally evaluate such activities in terms of the law of Ukraine.

In our international articles, we focus on such high-profile events as the aggression of Russia against Georgia. When the military conflict was in its active phase, the information from the combat zone was presented more massively than Ukrainian news. After the ceasefire, we started publishing an analytical research Georgian Scenario – A Warning To Ukrainians, where, using specific public facts, we prove that the assault against Georgia goes back to the Soviet times, while the conflict has an artificial nature, instigated by the Russian KGB-FSB (Federal Security Service of Russia - IMI). We have published two parts of the research, the third part analyzing military actions of the Russian armed forces against the sovereign state of Georgia was to be published.

It is to be noted the last analytical material was disseminated to great audience in both Ukraine and Russia. Publishing any Russia-related news, we consciously stick with the principle of alternative information, presenting facts denying official Russian propaganda myths.

Publishing critical information covering Ukrainian and foreign events, we however refuse to publish compromising materials, various covert campaign articles as, in our opinion, not only does such information fail to meet journalistic standards, but also humiliates our audience.

We are convinced the current massive DDoS attack against the Aratta portal is a political censorship technology used on the Internet. We ask our colleagues to show solidarity and use their information capacities to inform the public on this appalling fact.

We would like to stress the DDoS attacks involving similar technologies were massively directed against Georgia’s information resources during the Georgian-Russian war. This DDoS attack demonstrates a war against Ukraine has been started and is being actively waged in the information space despite naïve hopes of Ukrainian top-ranking officials to escape problems.

If you keep silent, we are confident special services will attack your web-resource tomorrow too if you are brave enough to simply write the truth.

Project founder Valeriy Kolosiuk

Aratta. Window to Ukraine Editor-in-Chief Sergiy Dmytrychenko"