THE NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF UKRAINE
The National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) handed over the testimonies of media representatives collected as part of the Murdered Free Speech project to the Tribunal for Putin initiative.
A total of 102 stories, which formed the basis of 25 TV stories and 77 video interviews, tell about journalists who fell direct victim to Russian aggression. Someone went through captivity, like Oleh Baturin from Kherson; someone was in extreme danger under fire and saved themself and their family from the surrounded Mariupol, like Olena Kalaitan; and someone had their newsroom burnt down by the Russian military, like Mariya Komar from Borodianka…
The materials collected by the NUJU will expand the extensive database on Russian war crimes being created by the Tribunal for Putin initiative. The respective agreements were reached during the meeting of the President of the NUJU, Sergiy Tomilenko, and the NUJU First Secretary Lina Kushch with representatives of the Tribunal for Putin initiative – Serhii Movchan (Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union) and Oleksandra Romantsova (Civil Liberties Center).
Murdered Free Speech project is implemented by NUJU with support of Swedish human rights organization Civil Rights Defenders.
“It is extremely important for all crimes to be called by their names, for these crimes to be investigated by national and international law enforcement agencies, with further decisions being made,” stressed Oleksandra Romantsova.
She added that it is paramount to protect media workers who have been attacked, as war crimes against media workers are often the result of them carrying out their professional duties in good faith.
“We are collecting testimonies of Ukrainian journalists so that Russian war criminals are punished,” emphasized Sergiy Tomilenko, the NUJU President.
He believes that as many people as possible worldwide should learn about all the collected stories so that no Russian war crime is forgotten or left unpunished. For this purpose, the most important aspects of the testimonies are now being translated into English and distributed in other countries with the support of international partners.
In addition, Sergiy Tomilenko gave an assessment to the Tribunal for Putin initiative, describing it as very powerful.
“We count on the protection of journalists and, at the same time, join forces with reputable human rights defenders. We will continue to organize educational events for our colleagues so that each of us has the necessary skills to document war crimes. The memory of the characters of many journalistic materials needs this,” the NUJU President said.
The Murdered Free Speech project (Drawing Ukrainian and international audiences’ attention to serious infringement of human rights and crimes against journalists and mass media committed by the Russian Federation) is implemented by the NUJU with the support of the Swedish human rights organization Civil Rights Defenders. It took the NUJU creative team half a year to compile all 102 stories. Currently, all testimonies are available on the NUJU website as well as on the Union‘s YouTube channel. Project materials are presented in the regions of Ukraine. Such events have already taken place in Kropyvnytskyi and Cherkasy.
NUJU Information Service
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