The Russians are holding more than 25 Ukrainian journalists captive. This was stated by the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech, MP from the Voice faction Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.
This became known during an online conversation on the topic: The Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech: The Limits of Responsibility and Compliance, which was organized by the Commission on Journalistic Ethics.
Yaroslav Yurchyshyn stated that protecting the rights of journalists is a priority for him.
“And there are two big blocks here. The first is the search for mechanisms to intensify the release of captive journalists. We have more than 25 of your colleagues currently in captivity, according to the latest data. These are not combatants, these are journalists who were doing their job, and according to the civilized rules of warfare, they should not have been captured in principle, but a fact is a fact. We understand how uncivilized and generally trampled on any human rights Russia is”,- he noted.
According to him, it is necessary to involve the international community in this topic and to prepare, together with monitoring organizations, together with journalistic associations, a component on responsibility in the International Criminal Court for crimes against freedom of speech, for crimes against journalists, probably strengthening such responsibility through clarification in Ukrainian legislation on a number of concepts.
Yurchyshyn also added that it is not only the Russian side that interferes with the work of journalists.
“We have a drop in investigations of crimes against journalists by almost 80% in 2022 compared to 2021. Everything can be explained by war, but we, as a country that is joining the European community, for which the value of freedom of speech is one of the main values, definitely should not allow this. Therefore, there have already been communications with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, communications are planned with the National Police, with the Prosecutor General’s Office, and we will hold hearings in the committee to investigate cases of obstruction of journalistic activity. Now we are waiting for data for 2023 so that we can talk about actual actual information”,- he noted.
We remind that 15 Crimean journalists have already paid for their position and are now in the dungeons of the FSB: Server Mustafayev, Timur Ibrahimov, Marlen Asanov, Seyran Saliiev, Remzi Bekirov, Ruslan Suleymanov, Osman Arifmemetov, Rustem Sheykhaliiev, Amet Suleymanov, Riza Izetov, Emir-Huseyn Kuku, Oleksii Bessarabov, Nariman Dzhelyalov, Vladyslav Yesipenko and Iryna Danylovych.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Center, for its part, also calls on the international community to continue to increase pressure on the occupying state so that our compatriots can continue their professional activities, and all those responsible are punished accordingly.