On 12 November 2013, NGO “Internews Ukraine” presented the results of the second wave of Media Freedom Index of the Eastern Partnership countries. Data on new ratings “Top-3 events facilitating media freedom in the region” and “Top-3 events obstructing free media in the region” for July-September 2013 were also presented. Both surveys are being implemented in the framework of the EU-funded Eastern Partnership Media Freedom Watch Project, which has also become an initiative of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum.According to the Index, Moldova ranked 1st, Georgia is 2nd; Armenia and Ukraine were put in 3d and 4th places respectively, while Azerbaijan and Belarus took 5th and 6th places.Commenting on the presentation of survey results, Zoltán Szalai, Head of Press and Information Section of the EU Delegation to Ukraine, stressed the importance of media freedom and freedom of speech as European Union’s fundamental values. As he said, this Project contributes to better understanding by the EU the specifics of regional media landscape and facilitates the information exchange between journalist communities of the Eastern Partnership countries.Analyzing outcomes of the study, Natalia Sad, Project Coordinator of NGO “Internews Ukraine”, noted: “Despite the greatest progress Ukraine has recently achieved in its relations with the EU, Kyiv’s fourth place in Index reflects the country’s imperfect legislation and its systemic violations. Moldova and Georgia, countries that just plan to initial their Association Agreements with the EU at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius, however, are reasonably holding first and second places respectively.”Anatoliy Martsynovskyi, Chief Editor of Eastern Partnership Media Freedom Watch web site (mediafreedomwatch.org), outlined the most challenging positive and negative events that took place in the EaP countries. In particular, the most of Ukrainian media experts called the following negative trends for July-September 2013: 1) cyber attacks on journalists’ e-mails aimed at their discrediting; and 2) creation of a clone of Ukrainska Pravda. From the other side, the most positive trends are court decision in the case of Olga Snitsarchuk and Vladyslav Sodel, as well as putting the draft-laws on public broadcasting and media denationalization into Verkhovna Rada’s agenda for the second reading.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 14:44:46 +0000
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