Freedom of association
Watchdog reports one killing and three injuries of NGO workers in Ukraine in 2023
The International NGO Safety Organization (INSO) continues to monitor the situation of civil society in Ukraine during the war. From January to May 2023, the initiative has mapped 21 security incidents affecting NGOs, including one killing and three injuries. According to the experts involved in the initiative, escalating military operations continue to pose the greatest risk to civil society representatives and volunteers. Most of these risks are related to the implementation of humanitarian activities near frontline areas or in areas affected by the destruction of the Kakhovka hydropower plant. INSO was established in 2015 to monitor the situation of NGOs in Eastern Ukraine, specifically in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
The European Union is closely monitoring the human rights situation and assessing the impact of the war on the ability of the Ukrainian authorities to create the necessary conditions for the country's further development. An event in April dedicated to this issue discussed measures to improve the situation of those affected by violations of international humanitarian law perpetrated by Russian forces, such as arbitrary killings and detentions, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment, deportation and forced relocation of civilians, especially children, to Russia and Russian-occupied territories, and war-related sexual and gender-based violence. Civil society and human rights activists in Ukraine have a crucial role to play in documenting these abuses, which in turn underlines the need to allow them to exercise their freedom of association without hindrance.
Freedom of expression
Institute of Mass Information: Ten media freedom violations registered in April
In its monthly report on violations of freedom of expression in Ukraine, the “Freedom of Speech Barometer,” the Institute for Mass Information documented ten incidents in April 2023. Since the outbreak of the war, IMI has registered a total of 514 cases of violations perpetrated against media and journalists.
Five of these were attributed to Russia and involved Ukrainian media professionals and journalists. According to the Barometer, the crimes committed by Russian forces in the reporting period included killing and wounding journalists, as well as violations of digital rights. On 26th April, the Ukrainian producer of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Bohdan Bitik, was killed in Kherson in a Russian attack while carrying out his journalistic duties. His colleague Corrado Zunino, a correspondent for La Repubblica, was injured in the shelling. The other three cases involved the emergence of fake websites posing as Ukrainian media and spreading disinformation using their interface and logos.
At the same time, the IMI experts also documented five cases of violations of freedom of expression that can be attributed to the Ukrainian side. These incidents concerned interference in the professional activities of journalists, censorship and restriction of access to public information. On 17th April, an unknown person attacked a journalist filming a report in Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, injuring him and damaging his camera. On 19h April, court employees prevented a film crew from attending a public session in the Kirovsk district court. On 12th April, Oleksandr Dubovy, a local official in the Cherkasy region, banned local newspapers from publishing articles critical of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Dubovy argues that these articles fuel religious hostility in the country. IMI also recorded two cases where access to public information was restricted in Chernivtsi and Rivne.