Ukrainian News Website Strana.ua Banned

25.08.2021

Source: https://www.coe.int/en/web/media-freedom/detail-alert?p_p_id=sojdashboard_WAR_coesojportlet&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_col_id=column-4&p_p_col_count=1&_sojdashboard_WAR_coesojportlet_alertId=105414653

NO STATE REPLY YET

President Volodymyr Zelenskyj has banned the news website strana.ua by a decree published on 21 August 2021. Lawyers have criticised a “lack of legal basis”. The authorities also announced sanctions against the outlet’s editor-in-chief, Ihor Huzhva, who is living in Austrian exile since 2018, citing the protection of national security. The ban is based on a submission by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), that reports to the President. In a statement, the SBU described the strana.ua journalists as “pro-Russian propagandists”.

Sergiy Tomilenko, the President of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), said: “The extrajudicial blocking of opposition media amounts to a forfeiture of the legal safeguards of press independence.”