“The world must know about Ukrainian journalists!” NUJU President Sergiy Tomilenko in the Netherlands

At the Free Press Unlimited office in Amsterdam, the President of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), Sergiy Tomilenko, presented the NUJU documentary titled On The Frontier. The Heroic Story of the Journalist from the Front-Line Newspaper.

This is a film about Vasyl Myroshnyk, the editor of the Zoria newspaper from the Kharkiv Region, who travels 400 km along the front line every week to deliver newspapers to readers. For many residents of front-line villages where there is no electricity or Internet, this newspaper is the only source of reliable information about evacuation, humanitarian aid, and the latest events.

Sergiy Tomilenko presented a special NUJU award to the Free Press Unlimited organization and personally to its chief adviser, Leon Willems, for the strong support of independent media in Ukraine. Thanks to the Media Lifeline Ukraine initiative, Ukrainian journalists received emergency assistance at the beginning of 2022, protective equipment, the opportunity to work from a hub in Warsaw, and local newspapers in the front-line territories were supported.

In The Hague, Sergiy Tomilenko met with representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Divke Foss and Anne Dankert. They discussed the work of the NUJU Journalists’ Solidarity Centers and the documentation of war crimes against media workers. The NUJU President emphasized the importance of supporting the regional and local media sector. The NUJU has already collected the video testimonies of more than 100 Ukrainian journalists. These materials are important for consideration at the International Criminal Court.

Sergiy Tomilenko also held productive meetings at the research center Asser Institute in the Netherlands, during which it was about strengthening the interaction between law enforcement officers and journalists in the investigation of crimes against media persons, as well as with the general secretary of the Dutch Journalists Union, Thomas Bruning.

“I was especially glad to meet Thijs Berman – a former MEP and journalist who supported Euromaidan and for many years took care of issues of freedom of speech in the OSCE,” says Sergiy Tomilenko. “International solidarity with Ukrainian journalists is now more important than ever!”

NUJU Information Service