GLASNOST DEFENSE FOUNDATION'S DIGEST No.194 (August 30, 2004)

Ukraine - Autonomous Crimean Republic. GDF office in Ukraine presents new CD at Press Center in Simferopol.

By Alexander Ivanov, Krymskoye Vremya daily

The Glasnost Defense Foundation has compiled an extensive database about violations of the rights of Russian journalists working in the Crimea. The new CD features materials describing last year's assault in Simeyiz on TV journalists from Russia's Channel One and Ukraine's Inter company. Apart from press publications, official protests by human rights organizations and professional associations, and findings of independent journalistic investigations, the CD contains a full-length unedited video film shot by the Channel One and Inter cameramen Vadim Telichev and Dennis Pogorelov.

Local experts maintain that the Simeyiz assault was most likely a deliberate, preplanned action. So was last June's attack "by unidentified hooligans" on NTV's Crimean correspondent Anna Konyukova who was severely beaten in downtown Simferopol in broad daylight. Moreover, it was not the first assault on Ms. Konyukova and her cameraman Viktor Sosnovsky. None of the attackers has ever been found.

The laser disc contains a special section on lawsuits filed against Crimean-based Russian journalists. After Mark Agatov, staff correspondent for the Moscow daily Kommersant, published his book entitled "Premier Kunitsyn and His Team", moral damage compensation claims worth a total of 118,000 grivnas were filed against him by individual citizens and various organizations, and the Crimean prime minister Sergey Kunitsyn has appealed to a law court asking to confiscate and destroy the book he dislikes so much.

Nadezhda Polyakova, member of the Journalists' Union of Russia and editor of the newspaper Zhitukha, also became the target of police pressure after speaking out in public in defense of the prominent human rights activist and lawyer Konstantin Sizarev whom a group of law enforcers had beaten severely. In defiance of Ukrainian legislation, the police department of Yevpatoria filed against Ms. Polyakova a moral damage compensation claim worth 100,000 grivnas.

The database compiler Mark Agatov, who is also the GDF staff correspondent in Ukraine, contributed a series of articles on preordered assassinations and facts of corruption and office abuse by high-ranking Crimean officials, as well as findings of independent journalistic investigations of the criminal behavior of Yevgeny Suprunyuk, former speaker of the Crimean parliament.

Ruslan Gorevoy, chief of the GDF Information Service, addressed presentation participants to tell them about his Foundation's history, programs and sources of funding, and describe the freedom of expression situation in Russia and other CIS countries.

He said work was now underway to create a network of GDF correspondent offices in Ukraine and Belarus to assist Russian journalists working outside the Russian Federation, disseminate information about violations of the rights of local journalists, and provide legal consulting services as their request.

Mr. Gorevoy stressed that the Glasnost Defense Foundation does not engage in politics and will not intrude in independent countries' internal affairs. Its main function is to defend journalists' rights. In settling media-related conflicts, the Foundation has closely collaborated with the Office of the RF Prosecutor General, and the GDF President Alexei Simonov is a member of the Human Rights Commission under the President of the Russian Federation, which puts him in a position to draw the Russian leader's attention to problems facing the media community.

The first ever CD describing violations of the rights of Russian journalists working in the Crimea will be sent to top-ranking RF officials, parliamentarians and international human rights organizations.

After the end of the press conference, Mark Agatov handed over the materials about Yevgeny Suprunyuk's criminal activities in the Crimea and Komi Republic to the Russian Federation Consulate in Simferopol and requested that they be dispatched by diplomatic mail to the Office of the RF Prosecutor General, for the former speaker of the Crimean parliament to be called to justice.

Meanwhile, Mr. Suprunyuk, who recently moved to the Komi Republic, has started litigation with the local journalists who reprinted Crimean press reports about his criminal behavior in the Crimea. The ex-speaker accuses President Kuchma of Ukraine of ordering his assassination. This is deemed to be a trick that may entitle Yevgeny Suprunyuk to ask political asylum in Russia.

The GDF office in Ukraine has taken the scandal under special control, intending in cooperation with the Russian law enforcement agencies to insist that the former police colonel Suprunyuk and his Ukrainian bosses be held answerable for their criminal actions.