Ukrainian investigative journalism on the eve of the presidential election

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Bihus and members of his reporting team noticed several
unidentified people monitoring their activity from outside their Kiev office starting on February 20. Bihus wrote that the monitoring began after Bihus.Info sent requests for comment to law enforcement bodies in relation to an investigative article alleging corruption within Ukraine’s defense industry.

As Ukrainians head into the first round of a tense presidential election on 31 March, Ukraine’s incumbent president and candidate Petro Poroshenko is at the centre of a corruption scandal involving the military and the country’s press are feeling the heat.

The allegations swirling around the president were uncovered by the 2019 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award-nominated Bihus.info, a group of independent investigative journalists, who undertook a multi-year investigation. The Bihus.info revelations were central to the president’s decision to fire Oleh Hladkovskyy, a top national-security official, who was implicated in corrupt deals involving the armed forces.

Denys Bihus, editor-in-chief of Bihus.info, posted on his Facebook page that unknown persons had been surveilling members of his team ahead of the publication of the investigation. Bihus believes the surveillance was organised by Ukrainian law enforcement and was related to the outlet’s investigations into corruption involving the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the State Fiscal Service.

In February, journalists from the TV programme Schemes: Corruption in Details, another leading investigative journalistic project jointly run by public broadcaster UA:Pershyi and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, reported being followed and surveilled. Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov has been accused of hiring personnel to spy on journalist Mykhailo Tkach and the camera crew of Schemes. The journalists claimed these activities have been aimed at obstructing their work.

Akhmetov’s security firm has accused Schemes journalists of breaching the oligarch’s privacy and collecting information illegally. The company said that over the past few months unknown persons had secretly filmed the office of SCM, a company owned by Akhmetov, more than 200 times, as well as the private homes of a shareholder. The company claims that those persons had not identified themselves as media workers.

However, Tkach said that Akhmetov’s security firm knew that he and his crew were journalists as they had shown their press cards. Police initially questioned Tkach in late February after he filed a complaint about the firm’s obstruction of journalistic activity. At first, the investigators intended to interrogate him as a witness, but Tkach insisted that he should be defined as an aggrieved party. According to Ukrainian laws, an aggrieved party has more rights in a proceeding: to see material about the case, to file complaints and statements.

In another alarming trend, Ukrainian prosecutors demanded access to the electronic correspondence of the investigative journalist Ivan Verstyuk who collaborated with the Novoye Vremya weekly magazine. On 4 February a court in Kiev allowed law enforcement to gain access to the journalist’s emails.

In 2016 Novoye Vremya published an article by Verstyuk about Olexander Korniyets, a deputy prosecutor of the Kiev region, who paid for his daughter Anastasia’s expensive study in London. According to the UK National Crime Agency report, Korniyets spent about £120,000, while the official annual income of the prosecutor and his wife did not exceed £8,000 per year.

This report, which was the basis of Verstyuk’s article, had been sent exclusively to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office, but was then leaked. Korniyets was fired in 2015, but Ukrainian prosecutors still haven’t finished investigating his case. They claim that Verstyuk’s story and his source breached the confidentiality of this investigation, despite the leaked report being readily available online.

Verstyuk is preparing a lawsuit for the European Court of Human Rights to protect himself from searches by the prosecutor general’s office.

The prosecutors’ efforts to obtain access to Verstyuk’s emails have drawn international condemnation. Harlem Desir, the representative on the freedom of the media at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, urged Ukrainian authorities to respect journalists’ right not to disclose their sources. The Committee to Protect Journalists also condemned the authorities’ efforts to get access to Verstyuk’s emails. Reporters Without Borders said that “it is becoming a habit to trample on the protection of journalistic sources in Ukraine. Head of the National Union of Journalists Serhiy Tomilenko commented that “It’s a shame! It’s an encroachment of media freedom”.

On 6 March journalist Kateryna Kaplyuk and a cameraman Borys Trotsenko from Schemes were assaulted by two deputies of the Chabany village head in the village of Chabany (Kiev region). The pair were filming on the premises of Chabany village council. The assailants were two deputies of the Chabany village head. The journalists called for an ambulance and, after a medical check-up at a hospital, Trotsenko was diagnosed with having a concussion. His camera was broken.  

Nataliya Sedletska, editor-in-chief of Schemes, said the journalists had gone to Chabany village council to get information for an investigation on public lands illegal detachment into private possession. A complaint was filed to the police.

On 28 March Schemes reported that unidentified individuals had been trying to access the programme’s accounts in Telegram, WhatsApp and social media sites. On 7 February at 4:07 am, unknown Kyiv residents received access to Telegram account of Maxim Savchuk. In a few minutes at 4:15am, an attempt was made to access the Telegram account of journalist Valeriya Yegoshyna, who suggested that an attempt to break into her account could be connected to her investigation of social media bots acting in the interests of politicians Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Mykola Martynenko, from the ruling People’s Front party. In early March, unidentified persons tried to break the Facebook account of Schemes journalist Katerina Kapluk and accessed the WhatsApp account of editor Daria Martynenko.

Sedletska said the attempts to access the accounts are directly related to the professional activities of journalists.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”10″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1553851892349-06473364-7471-4″ taxonomies=”742, 8996″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

#IndexAwards2019: Bihus.info fearlessly exposes corruption in Ukraine

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/VKf4-ki-cds”][vc_column_text]Bihus.info is a group of  independent investigative journalists in Ukraine who – despite threats and assaults – are fearlessly exposing the corruption of many Ukrainian officials.

In the last two years alone, Bihus.info’s coverage has contributed to the opening of more than  100 legal cases against corrupt officials, helped save 500 million hryvnia (£13.8 million) of public money from embezzlement, and led to the dismissal over 20 compromised candidates from the competition for seats on the reformed supreme court.

Chasing money trails, murky real estate ownership and Russian passports, Bihus.info produces hard-hitting, in-depth reports for popular television programme, Nashi Hroshi (Our Money), which illuminates the discrepancies between the officials’ real wealth and their official income.

The team’s goal is not just informing Ukrainians, but to convince them that exposing corruption is nothing to shy away from. To do this, it has sought to involve citizens and to improve the standards of Ukrainian investigative journalism as a whole. For example, the Bihus.info team created the Ukraine’s largest open registry of officials’ tax declarations, which became the source of many of their reports. They gave access to other publications and projects as well.

Bihus.info then launched the Tynsy! [Push!] project in which lawyers follow up on investigations to translate them into action – writing reports to law enforcement agencies, monitoring investigations and arguing cases in courts. The lawyers also assist journalists before and after publication. Legal support is provided not only to journalists of Bihus.Info, but also to corruption fighters belonging to over 50 organisations from all over Ukraine.

Investigative journalism in Ukraine is an increasingly risky business. Journalists have been beaten, persecuted and killed. Transparency International’s 2017 Corruption Perception Index ranks the country 130th place out of 180 countries. In 2015, The Guardian called Ukraine “the most corrupt nation in Europe”.

The Bihus.info team has been repeatedly attacked by MPs’ bodyguards and secret service agents. In the three years it has been operating, the team has been the victim of four serious assaults. In the first of the three, the crew was attacked by the son-in-law of the deputy minister of Internal Affairs. In 2018, the Bihus.info team found out it was being followed by the Security Services.

In 2018, the team has investigated government and opposition politicians, unelected officials and other public figures. One of their reports uncovered the misuse of international aid by the head of the Ukrainian Football Federation.

In another recent investigation, Bihus.info exposed that most of the family members of one of the highest intelligence officers in Ukraine had Russian passports – while the war between Russia and Ukraine continues.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”104691″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2019/01/awards-2019/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

2019 Freedom of Expression Awards

Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards exist to celebrate individuals or groups who have had a significant impact fighting censorship anywhere in the world.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1553263258536-1edfda11-60d5-3″ taxonomies=”26925″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

No impunity: Who killed journalist Pavel Shemeret?

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”103553″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Before his death, Pavel Sheremet was one of Ukraine’s leading investigative journalists. He most notably investigated government corruption and border smuggling in his native Belarus, leading to his arrest in 1997 but winning him CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award in the process. He was detained, harassed and arrested because of his work.

Then, in 2016, he was assassinated. And Ukrainian authorities still have not uncovered who’s to blame.

Sheremet had just left his home in Kyiv, Ukriane the morning of July 20, on his way to Radio Vesti’s offices to host his morning show. He’d only driven a few hundred feet when the car exploded, and he was dead.

Ukraine’s prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, called the news “terrible” on the day of Sheremet’s death, and other Ukrainian officials said they were dedicated to solving the murder. An investigation was launched. But, even two years later, no arrests have been made and no police leads have been made public. Any developments in the investigation have been kept quiet, and many journalists have taken the case into their own hands.

A documentary titled “Killing Pavel,” released in May 2017 by two investigative journalism organisations, highlighted the gaps of Ukraine’s official investigation, in addition to showing footage from security cameras outside Sheremet’s apartment building. They identified a former member of the SBU, Ukraine’s security agency, outside the building the night before Sheremet’s death. The SBU is one of the organisations tasked with investigating the murder.

The discovery obviously led to questions. Though the former SBU agent denied involvement in the murder, authorities have not stated why he was there that night.

Two months later, the CPJ published an investigative report into Sheremet’s death and found that Ukraine’s primary line of questioning was focused on Russian involvement, though the country has not given evidence of their interference.

Meanwhile, the police chief in charge of the investigation resigned due to obstruction by her superiors, and police and security service officials are pointing fingers at each other for destruction of video evidence.

In the same report, the CPJ said that 35 Ukrainian investigators were working on the case, along with three state prosecutors, and conducting 1,800 interviews and reviewing 150 terabytes of video footage. Yet no suspects have been identified, even with security camera footage showing two people planting the bomb under Sheremet’s car and a clear photograph of one of the assassins.

The CPJ said the possibility of Ukrainian involvement “casts doubt on the credibility of the official investigation,” and recommended the Ukrainian president invite an “independent international inquiry” to ensure accountability. Though the president said he would accept such an investigator, no action has been taken.

The failure by the Ukranian government to properly investigate Sheremet’s death and to quickly place the blame on Russia has not gone unnoticed. They have been criticised by a number of human rights organisations and advocacy groups, including Index.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Additional reporting by Gillian Trudeau[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”96085″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb near her home in Bidniji, Malta. Caruana Galizia reported on high-profile corruption investigations and had been sued multiple times. She filed a police report 15 days before the attack saying she was receiving death threats. Two months after the murder, 10 people were detained in connection with Galizia’s death. Three are now awaiting trial and have entered not guilty pleas. The magistrate will decide whether to excuse the men or take them into prosecution in front of a judge and jury. In the meantime, The Daphne Project is dedicated to investigating Galizia’s death and carrying on her work.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”98320″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Ján Kuciak, a Slovakian investigative journalist, and his fiance were shot dead in their home on 21 February 2018. Kuciak was reporting on tax fraud among businessmen connected to the country’s ruling party. He had previously filed a complaint against businessman Marian Kočner, who was allegedly connected with the bankruptcy of Real Štúdio KFA. A month after the murders, on 27 March, investigators examined the crime scene but found no evidence. On 27 September, police detained eight people connected to Kuciak’s murder. Among them were Tomáš S, Miroslav M and Alena Z. Alena Z is said to have worked as an Italian-Slovak interpreter for businessman Marian Kočner. A sum of €70,000 was paid for the contract killing of Kuciak, prosecutor general Jaromír Čižnár said, according to Slovak newspaper Sme. Sme quoted Čižnár who stated that it is still unclear who ordered the contract killing and would not confirm or deny if Marian Kočner is a lead suspect, but said further charges could be made in the case. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1541160123163-ad0ff09d-ff03-10″ taxonomies=”6564″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Illiberal democracies: Awash in media without plurality

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_single_image image=”102216″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]Visitors to Eurasian countries — Turkey, Russia, Ukraine or, to a lesser extent, Azerbaijan — might be impressed by the sheer number of domestic television channels that offer news programming.

The average TV viewer in Turkey flipping through the local channels is treated to an alphabet soup — atv, Kanal D, NTV, STV, interspersed with FOX TV, CNN Türk, public broadcaster TRT and countless others — all employing a vast number of journalists and purporting to keep the viewers abreast of events shaping the domestic and global agenda. The broadcasts are slick: filled with chyrons, attention-grabbing graphics, remote reports, breaking news, heated exchanges between talking heads and all the other trappings of the modern-day 24-hour news cycle.

Watching the lively debates hosted by TV personalities, who exude an air of professionalism and discernment, with or without live audiences nodding in acquiescence or registering disapproval, viewers may be given the impression that they are being exposed to a wide range of opinions in a vibrant, competitive media market.

But does this wealth of channels translate into pluralism of points of view?

“Certainly not,” says Esra Arsan, journalism scholar and former columnist for Turkey’s Evrensel, one of the remaining newspapers supplying alternative news and commentary left in the country. “In Turkey, there’s no pluralistic media environment. The Turkish media have never been pluralistic in the true sense of the word, but at least there were once mechanisms that allowed for the voices of the right, left, mainstream and fringe wings to be heard, especially, on small media groups occupying the niche space,” she says, citing the formerly independent Turkish-language media, their Kurdish-language counterparts and those of other minority groups.

Arsan described the massive media reorganisation that took place in parallel with the rise of president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP party since 2007. “It was characterised by replacing the old media owners with the new ones with close ties to the government, and exercising total control over them, especially, in big media,” she adds.

During the Erdogan-inspired restructuring of the media, professional journalists and newsroom managers were forced out or jailed, Arsan says. The replacement managers left a lot to be desired. “Many of these people are uneducated, have no idea of journalistic ethics or professionalism, they’ve become the mouthpieces for the government”. She points out that more than 3,000 professional journalists who were working prior to 2007 are now jobless.

“Nowadays, no matter how many television broadcasters there are in Turkey, we can say the government exercises control over 90 percent of them,” says Ceren Sözeri, a communications faculty member at Istanbul’s Galatasaray University, citing a recent study conducted by Reporters Without Borders.

“Among the channels not under government control were stations belonging to Doğan Group, such as Kanal D and CNN Türk. Very recently, it was sold to Demirören Group, a conglomerate with close ties to the government,” Sözeri says.

Among the TV channels that are still able to provide diversity in the face of the pro-government news she tentatively cites FOX TV, Tele1 and HalkTV, the latter being associated with the CHP, the main opposition party. “With these exceptions, almost all other remaining channels work in conformity with the government, we can say we have an environment completely devoid of diversity,” Sözeri says.

Driven by Erdogan’s efforts to build a single-party regime, this media reorganisation pursued the goal of controlling information disseminated in the country. Buffered by the concurrent changes to the constitution and legal reforms, the jailing of journalists started to rise as well.

If this sounds familiar, that’s because it should: “What [Russian president] Putin did since he came to power, was establish control over influential media outlets that had the capacity to form public opinion, firstly, TV,” notes Gulnoza Said, Europe and Central Asia research associate at the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“All federal channels are very tightly controlled by the state now, with the instructions sent to the heads of TV companies on how to report on certain situations. It’s very clear that anybody who appears on your screen on a federal channel in Russia knows how they can and cannot speak about important and critical issues like Ukraine and Syria,” she says noting the two hot-button issues around Russia’s ongoing military involvement abroad.

According to the latest numbers released by the Media and Law Studies Association, a Turkish non-profit that offers legal protection to the rising number of journalists who find themselves in the crosshairs of the government, with 173 journalists in jail, Turkey currently holds the dubious title of the regional leader.

With 10 journalists currently in jail, according to a CPJ report, Azerbaijan is a distant second in the region, and number one among the former Soviet nations. Russia has five, according to the same report.

In addition to the state-owned AzTV and Ictimai (Public) TV that was created in 2005 as part of the country’s commitments before the Council of Europe, there are four nationwide broadcasters in Azerbaijan: Atv, Xazar, Space and Lider.

Azerbaijani media rights lawyer Alasgar Mammadli says that all these channels fail to inject diversity into the discourse in his country because no outlet presents a balanced viewpoint.  

“The media only cover the government’s point of view. Considering the realities of Azerbaijan where the majority of information is obtained through TV and radio, we not only don’t have access to objective information, there’s no room for pluralistic news, we only have one expression, one colour.” He calls it “propaganda coming from the government that is disseminated to a large swath of the public,” noting that the internet is the only place offering some semblance of pluralism.

“In the entire region, I’d probably not name a single country where we’ve seen a positive trend, with the slight exception of, surprisingly, Uzbekistan,” says CPJ’s Said, noting that with the new administration of president Shavkat Mirziyoyev there has been a process of liberalisation, and for the first time in more than two decades, there are no journalists in jail.

Said notes that another negative trend is very visible in Ukraine since Russia annexed its region of Crimea in 2014. “At the time, after the Euromaidan [the wave of civil unrest that resulted in the government change], the Ukrainian media space had been relatively free for some time, but right now what we see is that the authorities are trying to control the flow of information, and the attempts are very visible and quite strong.”

Said explains that Ukrainian journalists are facing obstacles practically every day, stressing that she is not talking about Russian journalists trying cover the news from Ukraine. “The [Ukrainian] Ministry of Defense is making it extremely difficult for local journalists to get the so-called ‘military accreditation’ that would allow them to go to the eastern part of the country and cover combat operations,” says Said, adding that one of the newly imposed requirements is that the journalists applying for accreditation must provide previously written stories about the conflict.

“I would say it is censorship, because the government is trying to control the way the journalists cover the conflict,” she points out.

Galina Petrenko, director of Detector Media, a Ukrainian media watchdog organisation, disagrees: “There is pluralism [in Ukraine]. The economic interests doubtless manipulate the discourse, as the largest media belong not to the government, but to oligarchs, formidable businessmen conjoined with the power. That’s why business interests of each of these owners are reflected in the content of the media they own.”

Ukraine’s TV and radio council puts the number of the national TV broadcasters at 30, in addition to 72 regional channels. The country counts 120 satellite TV channels.

Maria Tomak of the Kyiv-based Media Initiative for Human Rights in Kyiv says that oligarchic ownership of the media has implications for pluralism. “We do have the freedom of speech, in comparison with Russia and other nations, but we do have limitations that are sometimes very tricky and are related to the economic factors, since we don’t have all that many independent media.”

She says that there is more than one “clan” or “group of influence” engaged in a struggle for power and influence. This conflict more or less preserves a tenuous pluralism. “When they start ‘oligarchic wars’, TVs show documentary footage or run news stories that clearly indicate who calls the shots at a particular channel. They mudsling or broadcast expose-style programmes, but it’s hard to call them objective, and it is hard to call it pluralism in its ideal sense.”

Bad examples are contagious

“The countries of the region quite often and quite speedily learn from each other’s negative experience,” says Mammadli. “For instance, Azerbaijan started officially blocking sites in February of 2017 through amendments to legislation. Before that, it was prevalent in Turkey and Russia.” He adds that the majority of the blocked sites are related to the alternative news sources. Mammadli puts the number of the internet sites and resources blocked in Russia at more than 136,000.

“We live in a region neighbouring Russia and Turkey and share ties with them, which speeds up the migration of these experiences into our country. Thus, the negative changes or attitudes towards human rights or the tendencies to limit freedom and rule of law in these countries can come to our country very fast,” he says. “It turns into a competition with the following logic, ‘the neighbor did it and got away with it, so let me try and see what happens’.’’

CPJ’s Said notes that these traditionally autocratic regimes keep one eye on the USA, which has been regarded as the flagman of press freedom and liberal democracy for decades. “Everybody used to look up at the USA, but since Trump was elected president, you know his routine, he wakes up in the middle of the night and starts tweeting, attacking journalists and critical media, calling everything they produce ‘fake news’.”

In her view, this definitely affects global press freedom, as dictators and elected officials with autocratic tendencies step up their pressure on critical media outlets in their own countries.

Arsan says of the effects of this phenomenon in Turkey: “If the dictator says the news is wrong or fake, even if you bring the most truthful news to them, be it on the issue of the human rights, war, the economy, the people will tend to disbelieve you. This makes the job of a journalist that much harder, because we chase the truth, and we see the tendency to disbelieve or outright denial on behalf of the audience.”

“Vulnerable stability” as the dangerous consequence

The shrinking plurality in the media throughout the entire region leads to a somewhat distorted processes of decision making during elections, says Said.  

“The lack of plurality, which is a lack of democratic process or access to such, does, in general, make any society more vulnerable. If we look at the situation inside any country, also, when you look at dictators like Putin, you may get an impression that their power is very stable and strong. But that’s a very vulnerable stability,” she adds, explaining it with the fact that it is, ultimately, one person making decisions for the entire country of millions of people.

“If you look at what Erdogan has been doing for the last 10 years or so, he has been pursuing the policy of turning Turkey into a regional leader and suppressing any alternative voice. Same with Putin and his foreign policy in Ukraine with the annexation of Crimea, or Syria. In a way, it is back to the USSR, where people could discuss things only among their family or close friends in their kitchens.”

In the opinion of Arsan, as media plurality shrinks, societies become increasingly unaware of  crises, which might set them on a path to disintegration. “This is the process of criminalising political discussion,” she said. “This is common in many Eurasian countries, as well as in the Middle East. These are the dictatorships without an end. People don’t want to go to the ballot boxes anymore because they don’t think they can effect change.”

For Mammadli, the people’s inability to access true information and analyse it means that they are contending with mass propaganda. From this point of view, the societies where people don’t know the truth will base their reactions on a lie, he says.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]

Media Freedom

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Media freedom is under threat worldwide. Journalists are threatened, jailed and even killed simply for doing their job.

Index on Censorship documents threats to media freedom in Europe through a monitoring project and campaigns against laws that stifle journalists’ work. We also publish an award-winning magazine featuring work by and about censored journalists.

Learn more about our work defending press freedom.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Mapping Media Freedom

Index on Censorship’s project Mapping Media Freedom tracks limitations, threats and violations that affect media professionals in 43 countries as they do their job.

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