Two online journalists arrested in the Ukraine

Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) reports the arrest of 2 online journalists in the Ukraine. In two separate incidents, Ukrainian authorities detained the online journalists Kostyantyn Sydorenko and Olexandre Pomytkin. Sydorenko is an online journalist who had been reporting on a mayoral election in the western part of the country. When he went to a local police station to retrieve a lost camera, he was arrested, then ordered to spend five days in detention for ‘resisting the security forces’; he remains in solitary confinement. Pomytkin, who works for the online newspaper Ukrayina kryminalna (Criminal Ukraine), was arrested not long after the publication of ‘The Ukrainian Mafia’, in which he exposes ties between criminal syndicates and Ukrainian police officers.

Questions remain as to whether Pomytkin and Sydorenko were actually detained in order to intimidate and deter them from investigating government corruption. Reporters Sans Frontieres objects to the treatment of the two men and calls for a closer examination of the circumstances behind their arrests: “It is all the more important to look into these cases because both journalists were investigating issues that are sensitive for the authorities.”

RSF ‘Two online journalists imprisoned’ (26.05.2004) http://www.rsf.fr/article.php3?id_article=10454

Website Criminal Ukraine http://www.cripo.com.ua

(Thanks to Chris Giu, editor GILC-alert)