Status: Partly Free
Political Environment: 19 (of 40)
Economic Environment: 20 (of 30)
Total Score: 53 (of 100)
(Lower scores = freer)
Much of 2007 was consumed by political conflict within the government and parliament between the country's three dominant politicians-President Viktor Yushchenko, pro-Western Yulia Tymoshenko and pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovich-which stalled reforms and left journalists working in chaotic and highly politicized conditions. The fragile governing coalition between Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yanukovich collapsed in May, leading to parliamentary elections in September and the appointment of Tymoshenko as Prime Minister in November.
The legal framework generally provides for media freedom and has been respected by the national government following the 2004 Orange Revolution, in which Yushchenko won the presidency. Criminal libel was eliminated in 2001, but some officials use civil libel lawsuits filed in the country's politicized court system to silence critical news reporting. In January, a court in the city of Dniprodzerzhynsk fined the newspaper Dzerzhinets 140,660 hryvnia (US$29,071) in civil libel penalties and ordered its property seized after the newspaper published articles about a corrupt local police chief. Political infighting distracted the government from reforming politicized state media outlets as well as the state bureaucracies, where secrecy and corruption remain widespread. In the beginning of the year, Yanukovich's conservative Party of Regions pressured state media outlets for more favorable news coverage and tried unsuccessfully to oust an outspoken reformist politician as chairman of the parliament's Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information. The Parliamentary Election Law prohibits the media from engaging in vaguely defined "election campaigning" and provides sanctions for this offense, but this provision was not used against media outlets during the September parliamentary election.
Despite President Yushchenko's promise to solve the September 2000 abduction and murder of journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, his government has made limited progress in the case. The trial of the three police officers charged with the slaying continued throughout 2007 while a fourth suspect, a senior police official, remained a fugitive. Gongadze's family and press freedom advocates question why prosecutors are ignoring evidence that former President Leonid Kuchma ordered Gongadze's murder, suspecting Yushchenko's administration of protecting the former president.
In 2007, threats and harassment against the media continued as the country's weak and politicized criminal justice system failed to protect journalists from regional politicians, businessmen and criminal groups. In February, the 9 Kanal television news director, Anatoly Shinkarenko, was attacked and seriously beaten by two men he said were associates of a local politician he had been investigating. Prosecutors and police regularly failed to take action against suspects identified in previous attacks. In July, prosecutors in Kyiv cited a "lack of evidence" when stating that they would not press charges against a Party of Regions politician who reportedly attacked two STB television journalists outside the parliament in August 2006. During the campaign for the September parliamentary election, hidden political advertising was widespread in the private media while the politicized state media provided significant positive coverage to Yushchenko and Yanukovich.
With hundreds of state and private television and radio stations and numerous print and electronic news outlets, Ukraine's media remained diverse. However, many major outlets are owned by regional business magnates with close ties to the government while others are dependent on state subsidies, making self-censorship widespread and slanting news coverage in favor of specific economic or political interests. Transparency of media ownership remains poor because businessmen and politicians often preferred to hide their ownership and editorial influence over news programs. Additionally, Ukraine's print distribution system remains problematic and dependent on the national postal service. Some of these deficiencies were partly offset by strong economic growth, which increased media advertising revenues as well as the popularity of business reporting. The government did not restrict internet access or require internet publications to register in 2007, but it had the ability to monitor websites and the e-mails of the 11.5 percent of the population that used the internet regularly. The country's growing economy continued to expand demand and readership of news and other websites.
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