ICTV television station journalist Tetyana Kruhova has been repeatedly harassed and threatened by police officers.
(IMI/IFEX) – Police officers keep threatening ICTV television station journalist Tetyana Kruhova. On 31 August 2009, police officers called the ICTV offices and summoned Kruhova to a police station, threatening to have an arrest warrant issued against her if she failed to appear.
On 19 August, drug trafficking investigations officers in Kyiv Holosiivsky district seized and broke Kruhova’s video camera, erased the video footage it contained and threatened to initiate legal proceedings against the journalist for drug possession.
Kruhova and her cameraman had gone to the police station in order to investigate a story about a drug trafficking case in Kyiv. Earlier, she had contacted a district police inspector, but he said the police unit at his station was not aware of the case. Kruhova then went to the drug trafficking investigations department, but investigators working there threatened to initiate proceedings against her for drug possession. In addition, the department chief for the district, Ivan Bilous, accused Kruhova of attempting to rape him. Kruhova’s colleagues were able to record these incidents using an amateur video camera. Only after the police officers were told that there was a video recording of their actions did they allow Kruhova to go free. They also returned her video camera, but it had been damaged.
