Category Archives: news

Ukraine’s only independent TV stations to be taken off the air by Yanukovych government

Last month I posted that Ukrainians who want independent and fair TV news coverage only had Channel 5 (Kanal 5) and TVi left. Channel 5 played a crucial role during the Orange revolution and TVi was set up by a Russian media tycoon who was the first victim of Vladimir Putin’s squeeze on media in Russia. Recently a court has stripped them of their new broadcast frequencies:

The board claimed that the court hearing was being influenced by Ukrainian Security Service head Valery Khoroshkovsky. Khoroshkovky owns the rival media holding Inter Media Group, which has asked for a new tender for frequencies. Khoroshkovsky strongly denied exerting pressure on Channel 5 and demanded proof of the allegations made by its editorial board.

"What kind of direct proof one can have, other than the fact that Khoroshkovsky is one of the owners of Inter Media Group? He is the chief of the security service, a member of the Higher Council of Justice. His wife is the manager of Inter Media Group. Here you have double standards," Roman Skypin, a journalist who heads TVi’s information service, said in an interview with RFE/RL.

As a result TVi will remain a satellite channel with little coverage in Ukraine, and Channel 5, whose licence allows it to be mainly about entertainment, may not be able to retain its news programmes.

It’s not surprising that independent media would start to disappear when the Yanukovych government decided to sack the current head of the SBU (secret service) and replace him with a rival television network and media empire owner. It is clearly a conflict of interest and journalists are vying for an independent parliamentary commission to investigate as well as Khoroshkovsky’s dismissal.

The development follows weeks of growing complaints by journalists about the resurgence of censorship and heightens fears that a Kremlin-styled crackdown on media freedoms could be in the works five months into the presidency of the Moscow-friendly Viktor Yanukovich.

Oleh Rybachuk, a former presidential administration chief turned civic activist, said “censorship is re-emerging, and the opposition is not getting so much coverage. There are similarities to what [Vladimir] Putin did when he came to power. We are seeing Putin-style attempts to monopolise power.”

In 2012 Ukraine makes the transition to digital broadcast television, in which all the old analog channels will discontinue and TV stations must re-apply for these new digital frequencies. Telekritika, a media watchdog news website and magazine commented in her Kyiv Post interview ‘Power wants monopoly’:

TVi had prepared the frequency for itself. It is common practice here that after that there has to be a tender held. By agreement with the National Council and all market players, the initiator has historically received the most frequencies. But they had to share with others, too.
But Inter Group claimed most of these frequencies – and that’s unfair. [Having understood that the claim would not be satisfied], they withdrew their application, and then filed a lawsuit. It’s not very clear why.

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The desire of the new power to control and monopolize television is visible through many of its actions and through the quality of the news we have.

Khoroshkovsky is a member of the High Council of Justice. In any democratic country, undoubtedly, this kind of a court hearing, with major procedural violations, simply could not happen.

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Another point is that something needs to be changed at the National TV and Radio Council. These sorts of commercial disputes lead to the loss of news channels. This shows inadequate work of the National Council, which has to make sure that we have information channels, public TV and that the needs for Ukrainian-language media are satisfied. But it has never done it in a civilized way.

And finally some background on television and politics in Ukraine:

During the Presidency of President Kuchma Ukrainian television was more or less controlled by Kuchma while the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) controlled Inter TV[1]. After the Orange Revolution Ukrainian television became more free. In February 2009 the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting claimed that "political pressure on mass media increased in recent times through amending laws and other normative acts to strengthen influence on mass media and regulatory bodies in this sphere".

As of January 2009 Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko refused to appear in Inter TV-programmes "until journalists, management and owners of the TV channel stop destroying the freedom of speech and until they remember the essence of their profession – honesty, objectiveness, and unbiased stand".

Members of Ukraine’s media have banded together to form the ‘Stop Censorship!’ movement to protest these actions of flagrant censorship.

Stalin bust installed at D-Day Memorial (Update)

As we mentioned last weekend, the Stalin bust went up Virginia but at least some good people there are up in arms:

A bust of dictator Joseph Stalin has been placed at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford despite public protest over its presence.

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Residents and leaders in Bedford have spoken out against installing the Stalin piece at the memorial.

Annie Pollard, a Bedford County supervisor who has volunteered at the memorial, said Wednesday it has been a source of controversy in Bedford and she feels its presence is “a slap in the face to all these other people we honor and remember.”

“I just don’t think it belongs on the hill with them,” Pollard. “To me, he (Stalin) is just a murderer. I just can’t see how he fits in with the memorial. They are people we want to remember. He’s someone I’d rather forget.”

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“It’s a disgrace and a dishonor to the veterans,” Morrison said of the Stalin bust.
Morrison said he respects the importance of remembering history but the memorial’s sole purpose is to honor the valor, fidelity and sacrifice of D-Day veterans.

“It’s not a history museum, it’s not a wax museum,” said Morrison.

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The plaque that accompanies the Stalin bust reads: “In memory of the tens of millions who died under Stalin’s rule and in tribute to all whose valor, fidelity, and sacrifice denied him and his successors victory in the cold war.”

Read the rest of the story

And from Pilot Online:

Some veterans say the bust of Stalin tarnishes the memorial and threatens its ability to raise money, even as it is struggling to stay afloat financially. The memorial’s overseers are trying to persuade the National Park Service to take control of the site.

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Stalin is credited by historians with helping to start World War II by signing a peace pact with Hitler and Germany. When Hitler later betrayed him, launching an attack against the Soviet Union, Stalin joined the Allies. Before and after the war, Stalin was known for his purge of political enemies and innocent civilians alike.

Read the rest of the article

Update: Locals are lodging formal complaints against the bust

Quebec declares Holodomor as genocide

This one was a long time coming! This legislation was first introduced last November and passed today which establishes the fourth Saturday in November of each year as ‘Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day’. You can view the bill here (French version) and track its progress online.

Congratulations on all the hard work. Now we can add Quebec to the list of provinces that recognize the Holodomor as genocide – Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan – as well as federally. British Columbia we are looking at you next!

 

Ukr Delegation in QC 
2010 June 2

Quebec, Canada-June 3, 2010 Members of the Quebec’s National Assembly yesterday unanimously passed Bill 390 – An Act to proclaim Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day.

The Bill, which was introduced in November by MNA Louise Beaudoin and received unanimous approval at first reading, commemorates victims of the Holodomor (the engineered famine in Ukraine which murdered millions of Ukrainians in 1932-33).

 

The legislation recognizes the Holodomor as "the famine and genocide that occurred in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 where millions of Ukrainians perished as victims of a famine deliberately induced by the Soviet regime under Joseph Stalin to quash the aspirations of the Ukrainian people for a free and independent Ukraine."

Continue reading Quebec declares Holodomor as genocide

Ukraine’s security service welcomes Russian spies, intimidates Catholic church to spy on students (Updated)

From Window On Eurasia:

Aleksandr Bortnikov, the head of Russia’s FSB, and Valery Khoroshkovsky, head of Ukraine’s SBU, have signed a five-year agreement that will allow Moscow again to put intelligence agents in Crimea, from which 19 such Russian officers were expelled at the end of last year for attempting to recruit Ukrainians as spies.

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The behavior of Russian agents last year, Rostislav Pavlenko, the director of the School of Political Analysis of the Kyiv-Mohylev Academy, said, raises doubts as to whether any document Moscow officials sign or any statements they make can be trusted. After all, what the Russians did last year was prohibited by bilateral agreements.

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Given that Ukraine has agreed to extend the presence of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol for another 25 years, there is certainly time for the appearance of a situation “when the Black Sea Fleet and the special services based within it can be used in actions that are counter to the interests of Ukraine.”
But the impact of this FSB-SBU accord is likely to be even larger, Ukrainian political scientist Yevgeny Zherebetsky argued. That is because the commanders of the Black Sea Fleet, immediately after the extension of the basing accord, began a “massive” downsizing, retiring some 7500 staffers, “of whom 6500 are civilians and citizens of Ukraine.”

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In addition, the fleet plans to retire 550 officers, many of whom will like the civilians have relatively low pensions and thus be open as are the civilians for recruitment by the Russian special services for work against Ukraine as a way to supplement their relatively small benefit checks.
According to Zherebetsky, it is “very important for Russians to obtain control over Crimea” because it lacks warm water ports. But “if everything will develop so ‘well’ [for Moscow] as it is now, then the Russians will try to extend their influence to Odessa, Kherson, and Nikolayev,” in an arc extending from Transdniestria to Abkhazia.
For that purpose, he continued, “Russia needs a broad network of agents of the special services,” but its prospects for success if these agents are active are very good because “over the course of the period of independence, the Ukrainian leadership has done nothing so that Ukraine could obtain complete power over the territory of Crimea.”

Read the rest of the article

Meanwhile the SBU recently tried to recruit a Ukrainian Catholic priest to become a secret informant to infiltrate student protests, many whom dislike the Yanukovych government:

Continue reading Ukraine’s security service welcomes Russian spies, intimidates Catholic church to spy on students (Updated)