(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced concern over a violent attack on Edouard Malinivsky, of the online newspaper “Ostriv”. The second online journalist to be assaulted in less than a month, Malinivsky was accosted by thugs on 12 August 2003 as he left a cafe in the eastern town of Donetsk, at about 11:00 p.m. (local […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced concern over a violent attack on Edouard Malinivsky, of the online newspaper “Ostriv”. The second online journalist to be assaulted in less than a month, Malinivsky was accosted by thugs on 12 August 2003 as he left a cafe in the eastern town of Donetsk, at about 11:00 p.m. (local time). He received several heavy blows to the head but his injuries were not life-threatening.
“We are worried by the steady increase in violence against journalists and we ask you to take effective measures to ensure that a climate of impunity does not take hold,” RSF said in a letter to Interior Minister Yuri Smirnov. The organisation also said investigators should not rule out the possibility that the attack was connected to Malinivsky’s work.
“Ostriv” has carried articles that are very critical of powerful local leaders in the town of Donetsk. However, the Institute of Mass Information (IMI) reported that police were working on the assumption that the incident was simply an altercation between drunken individuals. They have arrested a suspect.
Oleg Eltsov, editor-in-chief of the online newspaper “Ukraina Kryminalna”, was assaulted by two thugs as he left his home in Kiev on 24 July (see IFEX alert of 28 July 2003). He attributed the attack to his coverage of the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze, specifically his reporting of information supplied by Igor Gontcharov, a former member of the Criminal Investigation Police who was arrested in May 2002 for his suspected role in several murders.
A key witness, Gontcharov accused police and senior Interior Ministry officials of being responsible for the death of Gongadze, a political reporter and editor of the online newspaper “Ukraina Pravda” who went missing in 2000 (see alerts of 8 May and 12 March 2003, 16 September and 30 January 2002 and others). Gontcharov died on 1 August 2003 in prison in unclear circumstances.
