(RSF/IFEX) – On 27 September 2001, the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, which was examining a text concerning Ukraine’s respect of its responsibilities, voted in favour of the following amendment: “The Parliamentary Assembly recommends that the Council of Europe’s Council of Ministers urge the Ukrainian authorities to launch a new investigation into the disappearance and […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 27 September 2001, the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, which was examining a text concerning Ukraine’s respect of its responsibilities, voted in favour of the following amendment: “The Parliamentary Assembly recommends that the Council of Europe’s Council of Ministers urge the Ukrainian authorities to launch a new investigation into the disappearance and death of Georgy Gongadze, and to this end create an independent commission of inquiry, which would include international investigators; and to ask the Council of Europe’s member-states’ governments to offer the assistance of their investigators.”
RSF, which together with Alexandra Gongadze, the journalist’s mother, and Myroslava Gongadze, his widow, has called for the urgent creation of such an independent commission for months, notably before the Council of Europe’s institutions, welcomes the vote. RSF now calls on the Council of Europe’s member-states’ governments to offer their investigators’ assistance.
Background Information
On 16 September 2000, the journalist Gongadze, who was very critical of the authorities, disappeared. His decapitated body was found several weeks later in the Kiev area. The revelations on the probable implication of senior state officials in the journalist’s disappearance continue to shake President Leonid Kuchma’s rule. Yet, the Ukrainian state apparatus, including the justice system and police, have aggressively sought to block the search for the truth. The Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of the Interior raised their opposition to any serious investigation into the events surrounding the journalist’s disappearance and murder. Gongadze himself had denounced the threats from these institutions in the weeks preceding his disappearance. The commission of inquiry created by the Ukrainian parliament was not given the means to lead a proper investigation.
