NUJU calls for protection of investigative journalists whose work is hindered in Poland

The leadership of the International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ and EFJ) called on the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) to stand up for Ukrainian investigative journalists whose work is being rudely obstructed by Polish security forces.

The NUJU calls on the EFJ and IFJ to submit information about the incidents of attacks on the investigators of Ukrainian Pravda and the information agency Raion.in.ua to the special Council of Europe Platform for the Protection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists.

“Polish law enforcement officers ignore the status of the press, detain and search Ukrainian media workers, deport them from the country,” NUJU President Sergiy Tomilenko emphasized these outrageous facts in official appeals to international journalistic organizations that arrived in Brussels on March 14.

As reported, on February 27, Polish law enforcement officers detained the investigative journalist for Ukrainian Pravda Mykhailo Tkach and cameraman Yaroslav Bondarenko, who were filming the supply of Russian grain to Poland on the Polish-Russian border. The journalist and the cameraman were kept in the commandant’s office for at least four hours. All this time, journalists were not allowed to contact anyone. After the memory cards were returned to the journalists, it became known that some of the footage had been deleted. The NUJU appealed to the Association of Polish Journalists with a call to respond to the incident of rough detention by Polish law enforcement officers of the Ukrainian Pravda film crew.

“Full solidarity and support to you and Ukrainian Pravda,” Sergiy Tomilenko commented on Mykhailo Tkach‘s post on Facebook. “We expect that the case will be included in the monitoring conducted by the SDP Freedom of Speech Monitoring Center. We also count on the public support of our Polish colleagues in this situation.”

“No one has the right to threaten Ukrainian journalists, detain them for no reason, and seize footage,” emphasized the head of the parliamentary committee on freedom of speech, Yaroslav Yurchyshyn.

“We were waiting for a reaction from the Polish side, but there is none. Therefore, according to the decision of the Committee on Freedom of Speech, as its chairman, I sent an official letter to the specialized commissions of the Senate and the Sejm of Poland to find out the official reason for such actions by the police,” Yaroslav Yurchyshyn wrote on Facebook.

However, unfortunately, the next incident did not take long: two Ukrainian journalists were deported from Poland, who were also investigating the topic of cargo transportation on the Polish-Russian border. Among other things, equipment was taken from the journalists of the information agency Raion.in.ua Yurii Konkevych and Oleksandr Piliuk.

On March 7, “the Polish police detained us and confiscated our property, did not inform the consul, did not give us the opportunity to call Ukraine, and the Internal Security Agency called us persons who threaten the national security of Poland and expelled us,” says journalist Yurii Konkevych.

The NUJU expressed its solidarity with colleagues and appealed to the Association of Polish Journalists and the International and European Federations of Journalists to intervene and protect the rights of Ukrainian journalists.

The NUJU asks to publicly condemn the incidents involving journalists Mykhailo Tkach, Yaroslav Bondarenko, Yurii Konkevych, and Oleksandr Piliuk to initiate an independent investigation and request that the Polish authorities cancel the deportation and return the equipment to colleagues Konkevych and Piliuk.

NUJU Information Service