New data on journalists killed – 3

08.04.2009 The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has allotted 150 thousand hryvnias for the Prosecutor’s General Office to conduct the examination of the recordings made and provided by ex-President Leonid Kuchma’s former bodyguard Mykola Melnychenko in connection with the journalist Georgiy Gongadze case, said First Deputy Finance Minister Igor Umansky.

“Another 150 thousand hryvnias has been allotted to conduct the examination of the recordings in the Gongadze case”, Mr. Umansky said.

The Cabinet passed the decision to allot the required amount at Wednesteday’s session, he said.

Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko ordered the Cabinet of Ministers on February 4 to provide for the funds for the Prosecutor’s General Office to have foreign experts examine the Melnychenko recordings.

In late December 2008, European experts started an acoustical examination of the original recordings provided by Major Melnychenko connected to the murder of Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze.

Georgiy Gongadze was reported missing on September 16, 2000. Later, his beheaded body was found in a forest near Kyiv.

15.04.2009 The acoustic examination of the recordings made by President Leonid Kuchma’s former bodyguard Major Melnychenko is in progress, said Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Mykola Holomsha. Mr. Holomsha said: “Everything is going on as expected, no problems”.

As he commented on a date when the acoustic examination was to be completed, Mr. Holomsha said it depended solely on foreign experts conducting the examination.

Earlier, the Cabinet of Ministers has allotted 134,5 thousand hryvnias for the Prosecutor’s General Office of Ukraine to organize an independent acoustic examination of the Melnychenko recordings, required in the Georgiy Gongadze case.

Order No389 was issued on April 8, 2009.

Spokespeople for the Prosecutor General confirm the object to be examined is the so-called Melnychenko recordings and the examination will be conducted abroad.

29.04.2009 Ex-Major Mykola Melnychenko says the Verkhovna Rada chair has refused to provide a sample recording of his voice to be analyzed and compared to the one in the Melnychenko recordings. Verkhovna Rada Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn refuses to come to the Prosecutor’s General Office for questioning in the criminal case of the killing of journalist Georgiy Gongadze, Mr. Melnychenko said at the press conference organized by the former Prosecutor General, MP Svyatoslav Piskun (the Party of the Regions).

“I am saying that Verkhovna Rada Chair Volodymyr Lytvyn has ignored several subpoenas of the Prosecutor’s General Office so far”, said Mykola Melnychenko.

Svyatoslav Piskun said the Prosecutor’s General Office could not use reconduction as legal means to force Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn to testify.

“But I think it is the Prosecutor General that has to solve the issue. If the Prosecutor General talks to Lytvyn, the latter will come and testify”, said MP Piskun.

Mykola Melnychenko has made it clear on a number of occasions that he believes Volodymyr Lytvyn to be connected to the case of the murder of journalist Gongadze.

The former president’s bodyguard has recently said the parliament speaker refuses to provide a sample recording of his voice so that European experts could compare it to the voice, recorded in the office of Ukraine’s ex-President Leonid Kuchma, which Major Melnychenko passed to the experts.

Mykola Melnychenko says the present Russian authorities would like to see Volodymyr Lytvyn as Ukraine’s next president.

Journalists arrested, detained – 0

New data on journalists arrested, detained – 0

Journalists beaten, attacked, intimidated – 4

02.04.2009 Some persons unknown have been threatening the editor-in-chief of the online edition Football.ua Kyrylo Kryzhanivsky. On March 30, he received a text message from an unknown person threatening to kill members of his family, mentioning their names, Telekritika reports.

Earlier, since March 18, the online edition Football.ua had been suffering from continuous hacker attacks. The password of the Kyrylo Kryzhanivsky account on the website was hacked, posting viruses on various websites. His personal e-mail and PC passwords were also broken. As a result, unknown persons could create and manipulate text documents with offensive contents on his computer. On March 31, another code was posted on www.football.ua, this time one of the edition’s editors living outside Kyiv had his account hacked.

On April 1, the Ukrainian Media Holding Company, the owner of the online edition Foorball.ua, notified the Kyiv department of the Security Service of Ukraine of the abovementioned texts. According to the Ukrainian Media Holding, the abovementioned facts can be classified as crime according to Article 361 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine since the accounts of the www.football.ua editors and editor-in-chief Kyrylo Kryzhanivsky were hacked.

Representatives of the Ukrainian Media Holding say the phone threats are connected to Kyrylo Kryzhanivsky’s professional activities. They suspect football fans, who are not content with Mr. Kryzhanivsky’s articles, or competitors to be involved in the offense.

 03.04.2009 Journalists Hryhoriy Kvasniuk and Svitlana Fabrykant from Odessa say the Security Service of Ukraine officials have threatened them with 15 years in jail based on the charges of high treason, spokespeople for the Rodina (Motherland) party report.

Igor Markov, Rodina member and owner of the Odessa-based ATV channel says: “On April 1, at 10 in the morning, SBU [the Security Service of Ukraine] summonsed Svitlana Fabrykant and Hryhoriy Kvasniuk to deliver official warning. The Security Service can accuse the journalists of high treason. According to SBU officials, the actions of the journalists can be qualified [as criminal offense] under Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine”.

Ms. Fabrykant says SBU officials did not specify what of her activities could have resulted in high treason, but hinted that they were connected with the March 21 events when the Security Service arrived at the office of Rodina’s leader Igor Markov. ATV news presenter Hryhoriy Kvasniuk has told the information agency Novy Region he wrote an explanatory note stressing he was in no way connected to high treason or espionage. “In my opinion, it is a far-fetched situation. Though, honestly, as a child I wanted to become a spy one day”, Mr. Kvasniuk said. The journalists plan to address human rights organizations seeking protection of their rights.

The National Council for Television and Radio Broadcast has earlier ordered to exclude the ATV channel from the universal program service cable network. The National Council has taken the TV channel to court to withdraw its license.

13.04.2009 In Bakhchisarai, a group of Cossacks has attacked and beaten the coordinator of a Crimean Euro-club network, editor of the online edition Media Crimea Aider Mujdaba. Mr. Mujdaba says the police did not let him make a statement.

Public activist and journalist Aider Mujdaba says he had a walk at the weekend with four students of a Ukrainian class he used to teach in Bakhchisarai suburbs. As they approached the cave settlement Cufut Qale, he decided to take the children to the plateau. However two Cossacks came up to them and told them they could continue their ascent. When Mr. Mujdaba tried to talk to them in Ukrainian, he was slapped in the face.

The journalist filed a complaint with a district police officer, who apologized but said there was nothing he could because the St. Assumption Monastery “has signed an agreement with Cossacks who take care of the order together with police at the consent of the local authorities”.

The conflict between Crimean Tatars and pro-Russian Cossacks started as the Crimean authorities have passed the land, previously owned by the local Muslim community, to the monastery.

24.04.2009 On April 24, unknown persons shot at the window of the office of Hryhoriy Kvasniuk, an anchorman of the leading Odessa-based TV channel ATV.

Hryhoriy Kvasniuk found a bullet hole in the window of his office and called police. Apparently, the shot was made from an air gun with a 12-g CO2 cartridge from the opposite building. “I believe it was an attempt to intimidate me, which, by the way, demonstrates the weakness of the masterminds of the incident. They are afraid”, Hryhoriy Kvasniuk said as he commented on the incident. He is convinced the goal was “not to kill, but to intimidate him”.
 
In Odessa, Hryhoriy Kvasniuk, the host of the analytical TV show Pravda – is known as an oppositional journalist, criticizing both local and central authorities. 

 
New data on journalists beaten, attacked, intimidated – 0

Impediment to practice journalistic profession, censorship - 1

07.04.2009 Journalists of online editions of Volyn oblast were not allowed to the airfield of military base A-3186, Lutsk, where UEFA experts arrived to inspect the state of the airfield to be used during EURO 2012.

Journalists were told they should have applied for accreditation to cover the visit no later than a week before it. Military officials said however they had been informed on the meeting with the UEFA experts only the previous day.

New data on impediment to practice journalistic profession – 0

Economic, political, indirect pressure - 10

01.04.2009 The National Council for Television and Radio Broadcast allowed the radio Golos Kyeva (the Kyiv state regional TV and radio company) to reduce broadcasting. Now the radio is not to broadcast from 11 p.m. – 6 a.m. According to the radio station, the decision to file for the reduction of broadcasting time had been caused by insufficient funding of the company due to the financial crisis in the country.

The National Council found it quite disputable whether to put up the abovementioned time period for a tender. As a result, the National Council took decision to interpret the broadcasting time reduction as a temporary decision and decided not to put the vacant period for a tender.

 02.04.2009 The Kyiv Independent Media Workers’ Union with representation in the National TV Company of Ukraine received a list of 6 union members to be fired in April 22, Chair of the Kyiv Independent Media Workers’ Union Yuri Lukanov reports.

On March 4, Chair of the National TV and Radio Company Vasyl Ilashchuk had a meeting with the Independent Media Workers’ Union leadership and personally promised to provide them with the list. However, since the Kyiv Independent Media Workers’ Union received none, it had to file a lawsuit on March 28 as under the labor law the list should have been submitted to the Union on February 22.

“On April 2, 2009, Head of the Personnel Department of the National TV and Radio Company of Ukraine Oleksiy Lysenko provided the committee of the Kyiv Independent Media Workers’ Union with a list of six union members whose positions were to be reduced”, Yuri Lukanov says. “The National TV and Radio Company leadership actually did what the Kyiv Independent Media Workers’ Union had been demanding for a while. Under the law, the committee of the Kyiv Independent Media Union has 15 days to provide consent or not for the reduction. A member of the union committee at the National TV and Radio Company, Inna Udovenko, is on the list, which is a violation of the law. Furthermore, Chair of the union group at the TV channel Kateryna Katsan says the union received an incomplete list”. The Kyiv Independent Media Workers’ Union is to take decision on the list of the employees of the National TV and Radio Company to be fired at an open session next week. The session will be attended by the union lawyer Valentyna Prybylska and the National TV and Radio Company chair.

Yuri Lukanov says the union has not received any documents providing legal ground for job reduction at the National TV and Radio Company of Ukraine apart from a number of employees to be fired – 156 persons. The union committee has not received a copy of Order 3 on job reduction as of January 17, signed by the president of the TV company. The Shevchenko district court of Kyiv is currently considering the appeal, filed by the Kyiv Independent Media Workers’ Union against the National TV and Radio Company of Ukraine.

06.04.2009 Employees of the newspaper Krymska Svitlytsia have not been paid salaries since January, says the newspaper’s editor-in-chief Viktor Kachula.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the editorial team are co-founders of Krymska Svitlytsia. The newspaper has currently 20 employees. It also publishes an addition for children Dzhereltse. “Krymska Svitlytsia hasn’t received a dime this year; people had had to work without salaries for four months now. Due to the crisis, which can be used to cover any problem today, the strictest practices have been introduced to save state funds”, Mr. Kachula says.

On April 1, the newspaper director ordered “due to the underfunding in the current year to make a proposal on job and salary reduction in the newspaper”, he said.

“I’m not going to fire anybody, instead we are going to increase our presence, to achieve a twice-weekly publication level. I told them that in this, rather complicated, situation in Crimea it would be rather unreasonable to fire the last few employees of the only Ukrainian-language edition”, Viktor Kachula says. “Krymska Svitlytsia cannot be a profitable business in this foreign-language Crimean environment. Such an edition should be either closed down since it will never make any money, or provided aid to achieve higher quality than Krymska Pravda for example”.

Mr. Kachula says other print editions, funded by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, have been ordered to offer a reduction plan by April 2 too.

On March 31, Minister for Culture and Tourism Vasyl Vovkun said the ministry planned to unite the print editions of Kultura I Zhittya, Ukrainsky Teatr, Ukrainska Kultura, Muzyka, Krymska Svitlytsia, and Teatralno-Konzertny Kyiv into a media holding company. It is also planned to launch an Internet portal Kulturny Prostir Ukrainy (Cultural Space of Ukraine) as a part of the media holding company, he said.

09.04.2009 The newspaper Vecherkom will be transformed into an online edition due to the rise in the paper cost, said Guillermo Schmitt, CEO of the Segondya Multimedia Publishing Group.

He says the newspaper will return to Kyiv’s media market as soon as the economic situation stabilizes in the country.

13.04.2009 UBC TV channel plans to pay only half of March salaries to the channel’s staff, says UBC’s Politicians on Economy project manager Dmytro Hnat.

Mr. Hnat says the investor’s representative (UBC is owned by MP Hennadiy Vasylyev, the Party of the Regions) informed the team they would not be paid the entire amount of March salaries. According to other sources, a part of the channel’s employees are still to receive salaries for February and March. The investor’s representative said that was a temporary situation. He did not specify however how long the employees would be paid parts of their salaries.

According to our sources, the investor’s representative said a number of employees would be fired in May while others will probably have to have unpaid holidays.

22.04.2009 Employees of Media Point, a company publishing the Puls Kieva daily and maintaining the Puls Kieva online portal, formed an organization of the independent union Labor Protection and declared their intent to defend their rights violated by the employer.

According to members of the newly formed trade union organization, Media Point’s employees have not been paid since January 2009, which makes up a three-month salary debt, which in its turn is a criminal offense (Article 175 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

According to the trade union, all employees will be fired on June 3. However, most of them have already filed resignation. “Furthermore, employees have been illegally forced to sign a document confirming they have received their due salaries”, say representatives of the trade union. According to union members, in the event employees resign, the company still is not exempt from its liabilities and responsibility for illegal job reduction, not approved by the trade union.

 
Trade union members plan to defend their rights in court.

23.04.2009 The First National TV Channel can stop all-night broadcasting due to the lack of funds, says CEO of the National TV Company of Ukraine Vasyl Ilashchuk.

The National TV Company warned the National Council for Television and Radio it had no funds for all-night broadcasts in autumn 2008, Telekritika reports.

Mr. Ilashchuk says the company finished night broadcasts due to the lack of funds in autumn 2008.

“We warned the National Council (for Television and Radio) about it back in September 2008. Due to the lack of funds we stopped 1:30-6:00 a.m. broadcasting. The State TV and Radio manages funds for us. So it’s up to it and the Cabinet to resolve this problem”, said Mr. Ilashchuk.

The National TV Company CEO says in 2009 the TV channel returned to night broadcasts, but they will have to be finished again soon as the financial situation remains grave.

On April 22, the company started job reduction announced three months before.

27.04.2009 Ukrainski Tyzhden magazine plans to reduce three positions, one of them – a reviewer of the Economy column – is occupied by Vice-President of the Independent Media Union of Ukraine Sergiy Hooz.

Sergiy Hooz says he was shown a sacking order on April 13. The organization of the Independent Media Union of Ukraine in Ukrainski Tyzhden, headed by Mr. Hooz, has not given consent to the sacking of the journalist. Neither has it received a list of persons to be fired. “I was told in an informal conversation that I will be fired over my professional activities”, said Sergiy Hooz. Now he is working home. The negotiations with the employer have come to a halt as the trade union has not agreed to Mr. Hooz’s sacking, the latter is discussing his options with lawyers. He does not know what other two of his colleagues are to be fired since he has no copy of the order.

Sergiy Hooz has received support of the National Union of Journalists (UK), which demands that he be reinstated in his position with Ukrainski Tyzhden, Telekritika reports.

“NUJ has protested about the sacking of the leading activist in Ukraine’s Media Workers’ Union from his job on a Kyiv-based magazine”, NUJ says in a statement on its website. Sergiy Hooz informed his British colleagues about the sacking via email. He said he was forced out after his colleagues had formed a chapel and asked for a collective agreement. When they sought a collective agreement, Sergiy Hooz was sacked.

David Crouch, NUJ Father of Chapel at the Financial Times, and James Doherty, NUJ President, encouraged journalists to back the call for Sergiy’s reinstatement. In an email to the management of Ukrainski Tyzhden Mr. Doherty urged them to immediately reinstate the journalist. NUJ calls on the unionists to email their protests directly to Ukrainski Tyzhden manager Roman Tsupryk.

The British National Union of Journalists has been cooperating with the Independent Media Workers’ Union of Ukraine since 2003, when it contributed to the launch of the trade union.

Ukrainski Tyzhden director Mykola Sheiko says Sergiy Hooz was sacked for staff optimization reasons. “Ukrainski Tyzhden has naturally fallen prey to the financial crisis. [The magazine saw] a dramatic drop in advertising and purchasing power of the readers etc. Still, in the last six months the magazine has not fired anybody, nor has it reduced salaries. The management has taken to other economic leverages to optimize the business. However, unfortunately, we have eventually had to optimize the payroll by reducing a number of jobs. Specifically, our non-business magazine had three journalists in the Economy column while no other department had more than two journalists. One of the jobs had to be reduced”, said Mr. Sheiko. He said he was surprised the sacking of Sergiy Hooz had become a high-profile case. He said the journalist must have “exercised his official powers of Vice President of the Independent Media Workers’ Union of Ukraine to use his sacking for more effective self-promotion”.

28.04.2009 Halytski Kotrakty Publishing Company does not pay salaries.

Last autumn, Kontrakty Weekly, publishing by the Halytski Kontrakty Publishing Company, had to fire a number of employees. Later, in March 2009, Volodymyr Chepovy, the company CEO, resigned. A new CEO has not been appointed yet.

The Halytski Kontrakty Publishing Company has not paid January and February salaries, reported Kontrakty’s journalist Olena Shkarpova in her blog, on the forum of Kontrakty.ua and in a open letter to publisher Sergiy Ivanov-Maliavin. The posts were eventually deleted.

Several employees of the publishing company have confirmed the information on the salary debt. Most employees still have not been paid for the first two months of the year while they have received March salary and a part of April salary.
 
29.04.2009 Some journalists of Kyiv-based municipal editions have not been paid for four months, say employees of one of the editions of the so-called Kyiv Media Holding company, an informal union of communal private-owned mass media controlled by mayor Leonid Chernovetsky.

 
According to sources, journalists are currently considering establishing a chapel of the media workers’ tradition union in the media. Activists of three editions have been secretly energizing the trade union movement within the editions. Sources say journalists might choose to go on strike.

The media workers’ trade union was dissolved in the editions of the Kyiv Media Holding two years ago when Kazbek Bektursunov’s team took leading positions in municipal mass media. Mr. Djangirov of Kyiv TV channel, according to a source, banned any union meetings on the premises of the TV company. 

President of the Kyiv Independent Media Workers’ Union Yuri Lukanov says he is aware of the situation and is currently working on an inquiry to the leaders of the Kyiv city state administration and Kyiv city council, which is actually a founder of Kyiv-based municipal editions. 

“If journalists of communal mass media are not allowed to form a chapel, they should become individual members of the Kyiv Independent Media Workers’ Union. In this case we will be able to protect them more effectively and help them create a chapel in their editions”, he said. 

PR chief of the so-called Kyiv Media Holding company Petro Shcherbyna has confirmed in his comment that some journalists have not received salaries yet, using the word ‘delay’.

“Since all mass media of the Kyiv Media Holding are state-funded organizations, funded through the department of the Kyiv city state administration for communication with the media, we really have a partial delay with salaries. But none of the staff members will be sacked because we value each and one of them”, he said. As he commented on the information on the trade union, Mr. Shcherbyna said it was “a one year-old story”. 

New data facts of economic, political and indirect pressure – 0

Legal actions against mass media and journalists - 3

08.04.2009 Viktor Baloha, Head of the Presidential Secretariat of Ukraine, filed a lawsuit against the publishers of Fokus magazine and Uzhgorod-based newspaper Trybuna.

He filed the lawsuit on March 26 to the Uzhgorod regional court to defend his honor and dignity and seeking refutation of inadequate information.

Viktor Baloha’s lawsuit followed an interview with interior minister Yuri Lutsenko, published by Fokus in issue 12, March 20, 2009. The Interior Ministry of Ukraine, interior minister Yuri Lutsenko, and publishers of the magazine Fokus and Uzhgorod-based newspaper Trybuna, which published a part of the said interview, are involved in the litigation.

In his interview with the magazine, the interior minister said Viktor Baloha would be summonsed to give evidence to investigators of the Interior Ministry. According to the plaintiff, Yuri Lutsenko virtually claimed criminal proceedings would be instituted against Viktor Baloha. “No criminal proceedings have been initiated against Viktor Baloha as of now. In fact, the statement made by the minister is nothing but lies and defamation, publicized by the magazine Fokus and newspaper Trybuna. These two editions have done absolutely nothing to cover Viktor Baloha’s point of view”, spokespeople for the Presidential Secretariat say.

14.04.2009 The Kyiv appellate court is to hear the case on a lawsuit filed by Igor and Hryhoriy Kaletnyk against Vinnytsia province-based newspaper 33 Kanal.

On February 4, 2009, the Shevchenko district court of Kyiv ruled to satisfy the lawsuit demands of the plaintiffs who sought over 300 thousand hryvnias. The lawsuit followed an article, published by the newspaper Delo and some online editions and reprinted by 33 Kanal. Under Article 42 of the Law of Ukraine on Press, in the event of reprinted information, a newspaper is not responsible for it. But the court of first instance decided this Article could not be applied in the case since the original text was not presented as quotation and neither the web addresses of the online editions, nor the issue of Delo was indicated.

Journalists from a number of editions have sent an open letter the President of Ukraine to support the newspaper 33 Kanal urging Viktor Yushchenko to form a commission for monitoring all court rulings on mass media cases, both already issued and to be issued. Journalists insist the commission be comprised of representatives of the Supreme Court, mass media workers’ organizations, the Security Service of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (an MP-journalist), the Prosecutor’s General Office, and the High Council of Justice.

 27.04.2009 On April 23, the Pechersk district court of Kyiv ruled to satisfy a petition of Eduard Bahirov to involve Ukrainska Pravda editor-in-chief Olena Prytula in the case on moral damages of 1 hryvnia, which followed a critical article about Mr. Bahirov published in the online edition Narodna Pravda. Another defendant in the case is Yuri Sheliazhenko, who wrote the article.

The article (‘Human rights’ Khlestakov duping simpletons’), which, according to Mr. Bahirov, inflicted him moral damage, was posted on the Narodna Pravda website on October 9, 2008. In his lawsuit, Eduard Bahirov says the phrase “human rights Khlestakov” was inadequate. However, Mr. Bahirov does not demand that information in the article be refuted.

The article in question presents information provided by the wife of Mr. Bahirov’s brother Iryna Kosmina-Bahirova, Mykola Haber, an MP of the third Ukrainian parliament and President of the International League for Protection of Rights of Ukrainian Citizens, and Oleg Levytsky, Secretary of the Public Council under the Interior Ministry of Ukraine for human rights. These persons are considered as defendants in the case, the recordings of their interviews are to be heard by the court. Hryhoriy Kostynsky, a member of the Board of Directors of the International League for Protection of Rights of Ukrainian Citizens, a deputy of the Pechersk district council (Kyiv), is a witness in the case.

Yuri Sheliazhenko says Eduard Bahirov admitted before the court session that he had personally demanded that Olena Prytula delete the article in question from the website, which she apparently refused to do.

New facts on legal actions against mass media and journalists - 1

16.04.2009 The Kyiv appellate court ruled to reduce in half the sum of moral damages reparation in the case of Hryhoriy and Igor Kaletnik vs. Vinnytsia-based newspaper 33 Kanal.

Earlier, a court of first instance ordered the defendants to pay 300 thousand hryvnias of moral damages and legal costs. The appellate court ruled to reduce the amount to 157 thousand hryvnias.

The lawsuit against 33 Kanal has been caused by an article previously published by and reprinted from the newspaper Delo and a number of online editions. Under Article 42 of the Law of Ukraine on Press, in the event of information reprinted from another source a newspaper is not responsible for this information. But the court of first instance chose not to agree with this stipulation as the original information was not presented as quotations, nor were web addresses of online editions and the specific issue of Delo indicated.

The newspaper plans to appeal this ruling.

Our sources say it is not the last lawsuit Hryhoriy and Igor Kaletnik plan to file against the newspaper.

Lawsuits filed by mass media and journalists-  1

16.04.2009 The Lviv administrative appellate court found it illegal that deputies had fired Mykola Savelyev, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Ratusha, during the so-called “night session”. The court dismissed an appeal, filed by the city council, and left the decision of the Lychakiv district court, which had cancelled the resolution of the Lviv city council session of July 5, 2007, standing.

Late at night, on July 5, the Lviv city council sacked Mykola Savelyev and appointed a new editor-in-chief of Ratusha, the former PR chief of the Lviv city council Yaroslava Vovk.

On April 7, 2008, the Lychakiv district court of Lviv ruled to satisfy an administrative lawsuit, filed by Mykola Savelyev against the Lviv city council.

Though the Lviv city council’s appeal was dismissed, it still can file an appeal with the High administrative court.

The Ratusha editor-in-chief is known for his critical materials about the city authorities and personally Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovy. The mayor urged deputies at the July 5, 2007 session to approve privatization of the edition. Deputies however did not back this proposal.

Later, at night, Savelyev was sacked.

New facts on lawsuits filed by mass media and journalists - 0

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