• Population: 49, 902,000
  • Internet users: 2,500,000 (December 2002)
  • Average charge for 20 hours of connection: 13 euros
  • DAI*: 0.43
  • Situation**: difficult

A series of measures proposed by the security services for regulating the Internet were passed by the Ukrainian parliament in 2003. Civil rights organisations were alarmed by this, especially as Ukraine is a country where political news is widely reported on the Internet. At the same time, the government shows no sign of taking any action to put an end to violence against online journalists.

Use of the Internet has grown fast in Ukraine in the past two years and close to 9 per cent of the population had online access at the start of 2003. And those logging on often seek information about political developments. Opposition websites such as www.pravda.com.ua and www.cripo.com.ua are among the 10 most-visited online publications, along with independent news and current affairs sites such as www.uatoday.net and www.korrespondent.net. The Internet offers a way for journalists to publish investigative pieces that would be refused or censored by the traditional media.

Although harassment and intimidation of the news media is common in Ukraine, the Internet enjoyed a degree of freedom until 2002. But the authorities, especially the SBU (the security agency that replaced the KGB), became aware that there was a fast-growing public for online news and equipped themselves with the means to monitor the Internet. And they undertook reforms that are proving a danger to free expression.

Battle for control of the .ua domain names

Management of national domain names ending in .ua used to be handled by a private company, Hostmaster Ltd. But under SBU pressure, the government decided in July 2003 to reassign responsibility to the Ukrainian Network Information Center (UANIC), a company supervised by a board that includes SBU members. It is hard to predict the effects of this change and to what degree the SBU will take over the running of .ua domain names. Sale of domain names could prove very lucrative, but the move also suggests that the authorities want control of Internet operators in Ukraine. Hostmaster Ltd brought a suit against the government over this decision on 22 July but it was thrown out by a lower court.

Surveillance and censorship measures

The SBU submitted a bill to parliament on 19 August 2003 that would legalize the interception and recording of telecommunications (Internet and telephone). If passed, the proposed law would make Internet Service Providers install equipment to monitor e-mail and Web surfing. The authorities said the bill's aim was to combat crime and it would conform to European standards. But it was condemned by civil society groups such as the Ukrainian Internet Association, which described it as an unacceptable violation of Internet users' privacy.

At the same time, parliament voted on a law on "computer-related activities" on 18 November 2003. Its vague, loose wording would provide the government with additional legal arguments for censoring online publications. It said inter alia that it was forbidden to disseminate texts "endangering constitutional order... containing information that defames people" or aiming to "promote terrorism." It was passed on first reading by 260 votes out of 335. The editor of the online magazine UA-Today, Serhiy Morhun, said his magazine "would not be able to exist any more once this law takes effect." He also predicted that the main online media would not want to continue being hosted in Ukraine and would have to relocate to servers abroad to escape censorship.

Online journalist's disturbing death

Volodymyr Karachevtsev was found dead in his apartment in the southeastern town of Melitopol on 14 December 2003, hanged from the handle of the refrigerator. He was deputy editor of the weekly Kurier, a contributor to the online newspaper Vlasti.net, and chairman of the Regional Union of Independent Journalists (covering the southeastern Zaporojie region).

The Melitopol prosecutor, Leonid Vasylenko, opened an investigation. Police said they thought it was probably an accidental death. But Karachevtsev's colleagues, especially Kurier editor Igor Yenin, said they were convinced he was murdered to stop him revealing information that would have been embarrassing for the local authorities.

Karachevtsev had been investigating the possible implication of various local politicians in corruption in the selling-off by the mayor of state-owned property at a low price and the bankruptcy of the Start plant. In an interview for the Mass Media Institute, Yenin said Karachevtsev had gone out reporting not far from the town a week earlier and that his equipment, in particular a tape-recorder and a camera, was missing from the apartment. He had reported receiving death threats and being the victim of a physical attack in early 2003.

Reports in the local press tended to support the theory that Karachevtsev was murdered because of his work as a journalist. On the afternoon of 16 December, the editorial office of Vlasti.net took an anonymous call from a man who said in a cheerful voice, "That's one idiot less. Wait and see what happens next. I will call you back." The staff managed to get the caller's phone number and gave the information to the prosecutor's office, which quickly identified the caller. Prosecutor Vasylenko said it was the director of a Melitopol trading complex.

Kurier often carries articles that are very critical of mayor Vasyl Yefymenko and his deputy, Oleksander Ilchuk, while Vlasti.net, which was created by the Regional Union of Independent Journalists, aims to expose and condemn corrupt practices by local authorities and politicians. The official investigation is still open.

Impunity for Georgy Gongadze's murderers

The editor of the online newspaper www.pravda.com.ua, Georgy Gongadze, disappeared on 16 September 2000. His mutilated and headless corpse was found six weeks later in Tarashcha, a small town in the Kiev region. A Reporters Without Borders fact-finding mission in January 2001 established that many serious irregularities occurred during the investigation. Gongadze was well known for criticising the government and campaigning for press freedom in Ukraine.

The investigation made no significant progress in 2003. The officials in charge of the prosecutor's office in Tarashcha, who had been found guilty of negligence, forging documents and abuse of authority, were amnestied and freed in April and May. A key witness, former police detective Igor Goncharov, died on 1 August 2003 in prison in unclear circumstances. His body was cremated three days later. He had been arrested in May 2002 for alleged involvement in murders, above all murders by former police officers. He had refused several times to testify to the central prosecutor's office, saying he was afraid of being killed in prison.

In a letter received after his death by the Mass Media Institute and authenticated by the prosecutor's office, Goncharov referred to the murders for which he had been imprisoned, including Gongadze's. He said they had been "committed on the orders of then interior minister Yuri Kravchenko and his successor, Yuri Smirnov." He added: "The highest government officials and the president knew about these kidnappings and murders, and they are implicated." Kravchenko is currently head of the tax authority. Smirnov is a presidential adviser.

Together with other press freedom organisations and journalists' unions, Reporters Without Borders asked prosecutor-general Vassiliev Gennady on 6 February 2004 to let civil society monitor a new expert examination of tape recordings allegedly made in President Leonid Kuchma's office by former police officer Mykola Melnichenko and said to implicate the country's highest officials in Gongadze's death. After Gennady replied that the constitution and criminal code did not provide for this kind of supervision, Reporters Without Borders, the Mass Media Institute, Article 19, the British National Union of Journalists and the International Federation of journalists reiterated their call.

The prosecutor's office announced on 24 March that a group of international experts had arrived in Kiev to carry out a fresh examination of the "Melnichenko tapes." But in a phone conversation with the Mass Media Institute, prosecutor's office spokesperson Oxana Sokolova reiterated the refusal to let five press freedom organisations participate in the examination.

Online journalist physically attacked

Oleg Eltsov, the editor of the online newspaper Ukraina Kryminalna, was attacked near his Kiev home at around 10 pm on 12 January 2004. One or possibly two persons fired rubber bullets at him before driving away. He sustained minor injuries to the chest and a leg. He had previous been attacked as he left his home on 24 July 2003. The police investigation drew a blank. Eltsov had attributed the earlier attack to his coverage of the Gongadze case, above all his reporting of information supplied by the imprisoned ex-policemen Goncharov (see above).

Links

* The DAI (Digital Access Index) has been devised by the International Telecommunications Union to measure the access of a country's inhabitants to information and communication technology. It ranges from 0 (none at all) to 1 (complete access).

** Assessment of the situation in each country (good, middling, difficult, serious) is based on murders, imprisonment or harassment of cyber-dissidents or journalists, censorship of news sites, existence of independent news sites, existence of independent ISPs and deliberately high connection charges.

Disclaimer:

This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.