Over 1,000 people came on Tuesday, March 2, to the Representative’s Office of the EU in Ukraine to draw the attention of Europe to illegal actions of the Ukrainian authorities toward 112 Ukraine, NewsOne and ZiK TV channels.
Besides the Ukrainians who cares about the destiny of the freedom of speech in Ukraine, the MPs from the Opposition platform – For Life – Ilya Kiva, Nestor Shufrych, Viktor Chorny, Renat Kuzmin, Antonina Slavitska, Oleh Voloshyn, Oleksandr Koltunovych, Mykhailo Makarenlo came to downtown Kyiv, at Volodymyrska Street. The journalists of three illicitly closed NewsOne, 112 Ukraine and ZiK TV channels stayed with them near the Representative’s Office of the EU.
The journalists requested the meeting with President of the European Council Charles Michel who pays the official visit to Ukraine. The employees of NewsOne, 112 Ukraine, ZiK Diana Panchenko, Rostyslav Sukhachov, Yulia Koltak and Bohdan Aminov intended to appeal to him with the letter that tells in details about the censorship in the country and attack on the freedom of speech.
Many parliamentarians spoke during the meeting. In particular, Nestor Shufrich drew attention to the fact that the main censor in Ukraine is the people and it is the people who have the main censorship tool - the TV remote control.
"On February 2, by unconstitutional decree, three TV channels - 112 Ukraine, NewsOne, ZIK were turned off. And on February 26, Pershy Nezalezhniy TV channel worked for only one hour. This is our independence. On the 30th year of independence, we have ended up in a situation when journalists are silenced, "the parliamentarian stressed,"
