THE NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF UKRAINE
The National Award for the Protection of Freedom Of Speech, named after Ihor Lubchenko for 2024, will be handed over to the authoritative Swedish human rights organization, Civil Rights Defenders. The decision on the award was made at a joint meeting on January 25 by the Board and the Secretariat of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU).
The proposal to recognize Swedish human rights defenders was put forward by the well-known Crimean journalist/NUJU secretary/laureate of the Lubchenko Award, Mykola Semena.
“Civil Rights Defenders has done a great deal for the journalistic community of Ukraine. I propose to mark this particular organization by noting the names of its leaders in the documents,” Mykola Semena emphasized.
The President of the NUJU, Sergiy Tomilenko, in turn, emphasized that Civil Rights Defenders is making great efforts to protect Ukrainian journalists, including those who are illegally persecuted by the Russian invaders in Crimea and other occupied territories of Ukraine, as well as to document journalists’ testimonies about war crimes committed against them.
“With the support of the Civil Rights Defenders, the NUJU documents the testimonies of journalists about war crimes, submits international reports, drawing the attention of the world community to responsibility for the crimes of the Russian Federation against media workers during the war,” said Sergiy Tomilenko.
In particular, as part of the project to draw the attention of the Ukrainian and international audience to serious violations of human rights and crimes against journalists and mass media committed by the Russian Federation (the project known under the slogan Executed Free Speech), the testimonies of journalists about war crimes during the Russian-Ukrainian war are documented.
Dozens of videos in Ukrainian and English have been created based on stories of journalists who suffered as a result of Russian aggression. A total of 102 text materials have been translated into English. Brochures with fragments of text stories of the injured journalists were printed in Ukrainian and English. Eleven conference presentations and two webinars were held, the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War organized the exhibition called Executed Free Speech, and two roundtables were held on its site.
The project’s story team includes media people who have been forcibly displaced either since the full-scale Russian invasion this year or since the beginning of Russian aggression in 2014.
The materials collected are sent to human rights organizations for further use in international campaigns and trials to hold Russia accountable for war crimes.
“Thanks to Civil Rights Defenders, the stories of people from Izium, Mykolayiv, Bucha, Sloviyansk, and other cities of Ukraine, their testimonies are heard on international platforms,” emphasized Sergiy Tomilenko. “I hope that awarding Civil Rights Defenders with the National Award will not only be a worthy tribute to this authoritative organization but will also draw additional attention on the international stage to honoring the memory of Ihor Lubchenko, the problems of Ukraine, and NUJU‘s efforts to protect journalists.”
NUJU Information Service
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