The scandal over Ukraine’s now notorious blacklist of prominent international journalists has flared up yet again, as the Foreign Ministry digs itself in deeper in trying to justify the move.
Oksana Romaniuk of Reporters Without Borders on Sept. 18 published a list of journalists said to have been compiled by the Foreign Ministry in late February. The list, a photograph of which Romaniuk posted on Facebook after receiving the documents from an unknown source, apparently served as the basis for the sanctions list signed by President Petro Poroshenko on Sept. 16, which included BBC journalists Emma Wells and Steven Rosenberg, among others.
The Foreign Ministry responded publicly to Romaniuk’s post, reminding her on Facebook that the documents she published, under Ukrainian legislation, were meant to stay confidential – apparent confirmation that the documents were legitimate. The ministry also noted that the list in question had not served as the basis for the finalized sanctions list.
After the publication of the list of sanctioned journalists triggered international outrage, Poroshenko quickly backtracked and canceled the bans on six of them.
But now the entire list is under scrutiny, as the documents provided by Romaniuk exposed a worrying detail: several international journalists were apparently sanctioned for their “anti-Ukrainian coverage of events,” with nobody quite sure how such determinations about a reporter’s work are made.
The sanctioning of foreign journalists for “anti-Ukrainian coverage” follows “the Kremlin’s pattern of behavior all while they (Ukrainians) are declaring new principles,” Romaniuk told the Kyiv Post, saying the list was an “absolute embarrassment” for Ukraine at a time when Ukraine needs international support the most.
“We are having our lawyers prepare documents to send to the ministry to ask them who exactly decides what constitutes ‘anti-Ukrainian’ coverage, and what exactly the criteria are,” Romaniuk said.
“The best thing they could do now is admit that they made a mistake and promise that those responsible will be held to account,” she said, noting that she believed the list was hastily prepared at the last moment.
“Ukraine spent so much time preparing (to introduce) these sanctions … now they’ve released the sanctions and they are so badly prepared. I think they were designed for some internal reasons, to show that something big has been done ahead of elections,” she said.
The plan backfired, she said, because whoever prepared the list exhibited negligence, incompetence, and a complete lack of understanding of the media.
