The Russian Foreign Ministry has demanded that Kiev conduct objective
investigation into the death of Channel One journalist in the Donetsk Region.
The ministry also asked to find and punish the culprits behind the death of
cameraman Anatoly Klyan. "Cruel and absolutely illegitimate pursuit of
Russian reporters continues in Ukraine," the document said.
"We are outraged with Kiev's line regarding
reporters from Russia working in dangerous conditions in Ukraine and demand
that such pursuits and outrage be stopped immediately and those guilty be
punished. After all, Ukraine must start fulfilling its international
obligations in the sector of human rights and supremacy of law," the
Russian Foreign Ministry posted a statement on Monday
Channel One operator Alexander Klyan died at the hands
of Kiev law enforcers on June 28, and reporters of the LifeNews, REN TV and Mir
24 TV channels came under fire, the Foreign Ministry said.
"The attacks on our reporters occur amid repeated
assurances of [Ukrainian] President Petr Poroshenko on readiness to settle the
situation in southeast of the country and to achieve truce. In reality, the
Ukrainian authorities cut the attempts to bring the truth about events
happening to global community with any means, even direct provocations posing a
threat to lives of Russian citizens," the statement said.
"It is evident now that reporters courageously
carrying out their professional duties are the target of Ukrainian special
services and radical nationalists. Kiev does not disdain such methods as
physical violence, intentional shootings of reporters and torture banned by
international law," the Foreign Ministry said, Interfax reports.
According to the statement, "the requests of
Russia and other representatives of the global community - to hold objective
investigations of all incidents of attacks on our reporters and other attacks
on civilians in the conflict zone - addressed to the Ukrainian authorities
remain unanswered as of now."
Another journalist killed; Russia's Channel One
cameraman sustained a lethal abdominal wound in a trip to a military camp in
Donetsk. This is the latest episode in a series of journalists being injured or
killed in Ukraine.
Overnight into Monday, June 30 four camera crews from
Russia’s four different TV stations were attacked. MIR 24, LifeNews and Ren-TV
journalists were lucky, Channel One lost a life.
The trip to the military unit near Donetsk, where the
operator for Russia’s top federal channel died, was organized by the press
service of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR).
During the attack the Ukrainian military gunned a bus
with group of Russian Channel One journalists and mothers of enlisted soldiers.
As a result, the team’s operator Anatoly Klyan was fatally wounded in the
stomach and died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The bus driver
sustained a neck injury and at the expense of his own life managed to drive the
vehicle away from fire and save his passengers.
"Tonight, our colleague Anatoly Klyan, cameraman for
the Channel One, died in Donetsk," the TV channel's statement said.
"The tragedy happened near one of army units, where the crew came to film
a report. At the site, shots were unexpectedly fired from the side of the
servicemen. Anatoly Klyan received a fatal gunshot wound to the abdomen. He was
68 years old."
The soldiers' mothers had an argument with officers
before the gunfire which killed Russia's Channel One cameraman started, DPR
parliament deputy Oleg Frolov told Interfax about the incident on Monday.
"The bus the women were riding carried "Son,
Come Home" and other signs. It was clear that women were on the bus. After
they had reached the military unit camp, several officers approached the bus
and rudely told the women to leave the area in front of the military unit gate.
Then they opened fire on the bus," Frolov said.
There were no militiamen on the attacked bus, DPR
First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Purgin told Interfax. "It was a bus
carrying civilians, women and journalists. There was not a single militiaman on
that bus," the DPR first vice-premier indicated.
Russia’s MIR 24 correspondents were gunned in the
Donetsk region as well, but survived the attack.
"When we went to the scene of armed hostilities
there was not a single checkpoint, no roadblocks. Having entered the city, one
of the supporters of the self-proclaimed Republic practically threw himself
under our wheels and asked we stop the car. Immediately, a flair flew into the
air and our car was shot at. Thankfully, we were able to run out and
hide," MIR 24 press service cites its correspondent Alexander Leonenko as
saying.
During the same attack that killed Channel One’s
operator Anatloly Klyan, REN-TV and LifeNews television crews also came under
gunfire. These journalists were not hurt and managed to escape.
LiveNews correspondent Kirill Olkov told of how he and
his operator Marat Abulhatin managed to escape during an attack by Ukrainian
law enforcers near Donetsk.
They had a trip to the same military unit that
attacked Channel One journalists that was also organized by DPR’s press
service. According to them, the Ukrainian military radar location unit in
Avdeevo was supposed to lay down their arms on June 29 around 11 pm local time.
"DPR press service invited us to go to a military
unit. The bus with the federal channel journalists and the soldiers' mothers
were sent there as well," said Olkov. "We decided to take a taxi. But
things did not go according to plan, the negotiations were wrecked."
According to the journalist, they were waiting for the
bus to arrive at the Donetsk military base #1428. At that point the unit opened
fire using Kalashnikov guns.
"We stopped about 500 meters away from the
facility. Marat Abulhatin and the taxi driver went out, I stayed in the cabin
and that's when the shooting started," said Olkov.
"It was machine-gun fire, knocked out the
windshield. I jumped out of the car and fell down onto the asphalt. Flare
lights appeared in the sky. They illuminated the perimeter almost as if it were
the middle of the day. We were in full view and they opened fire again. We had
to crawl about 400 meters along the road to escape."
Kirill Olkov said they managed to flee the
concentrated fire in a field. Then, he said, the Ukrainian military used more
heavy guns, grenade launchers and mortars.
"One mine exploded 20 meters away from us. For
over an hour we were trying to get out of that field. But the security forces
constantly fired flares and immediately resumed fire, trying to take us
down," said the journalist. "It is a miracle that we managed to get
to a bypass road. We phoned our acquaintances and one of the taxi drivers was
able to get us out and take us to the nearest checkpoint."
As in the case the deaths of reporter Igor Kornelyuk
and sound engineer Anton Voloshin, Moscow demands that Kiev find and punish
those responsible. The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a criminal
case in connection to Klyan’s murder under article 356 of the Russian Criminal
Code (murder of a person in the line of duty in a socially dangerous way).
Russian Foreign Ministry accuses Ukraine of blocking the fragile truce. The
Investigative Committee declared it will continue to gather evidence of the
crimes and will do its best consistent with the current legislation to punish
every culprit of these crimes.
Repeatedly, the murder of journalists was condemned by
the UN, Reporters without Borders and a number of other international,
governmental, non-governmental and human rights organizations.
Yet as in the case of Igor Kornelyuk and Anton
Voloshin, no one has been punished. On the contrary, in the past few months the
attacks on Russian journalists in Ukraine seem to only intensify.
On May 9 a young cameraman from RT's video crew Fedor
Zavaleykov was wounded during fighting in Mariupol.
On June 11 a Channel One crew member came under fire
in a small town called Semenovka near Slavyansk.On May 20, a British journalist
working for RT was detained by military forces at a checkpoint in Mariupol,
transferred to an army barracks and interrogated by Ukrainian security forces
for 36 hours.
On June 14, Russian TV channel Zvezda reported two of
its journalists detained.
Just a few days later, on June 16, a group of
journalists from RT's video crew came under fire – again - near Slavyansk.
The first Russian journalists to die while on
professional duty were Russian TV reporter Igor Kornelyuk and sound engineer
Anton Voloshin who were killed in a shelling this June. They were shooting a
news story of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the small town Metallist in the
Lugansk region when hit with mortar shells. Now, four crews came under deadly attack on one single
night.
In total, six media workers have been killed since the
beginning of the year, four of which are Russian; two cameramen Voloshin and
Klyan, one correspondent Kornelyuk, and Andrei Mironov who was an assistant to
an Italian photographer Andrea Rokkelli, also killed. A correspondent of
Ukrainian newspaper "Vesti" Vyacheslav Veremei also died in the line
of duty at the hands of his own countrymen.
These are just some examples of how journalists and
video crew members for the media are being treated in Ukraine. Getting the
right information and the straight facts has become a deadly risk in some
regions of Ukraine. The most recent stories show just how cruel players on
the battlefield can be to those who are at the altar of truth
Source: Voice of Russia 30-06-2014
