Ukrainian Union Of Journalists Demands Parliamentary Hearings On Media Workers' Safety

The Ukrainian National Union of Journalists demanded on Tuesday that the chairman of the Ukrainian parliament, Andriy Parubiy, appoint hearings at the country's legislature to address the issue of safety of journalists working in Ukraine amid increasing aggression toward media representatives and attackers' impunity.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th December, 2018) The Ukrainian National Union of Journalists demanded on Tuesday that the chairman of the Ukrainian parliament, Andriy Parubiy, appoint hearings at the country's legislature to address the issue of safety of journalists working in Ukraine amid increasing aggression toward media representatives and attackers' impunity.

"The Ukrainian National Union of Journalists demands that the chairman of the Ukrainian [parliament] Verkhovna Rada immediately introduce an initiative ... to appoint parliamentary hearings on the physical safety of journalists in Ukraine, and uses all political and legal leverage at his disposal to ensure effective voting on this issue," the statement, published on the association's official website, said.

According to the association, while media representatives in Ukraine have been recently facing more aggression than before, practically no one has received any real punishment for these attacks.

"Politicians and government officials allow themselves aggressive behavior toward journalists, justify attacks against them, and sometimes put the blame on media representatives themselves," the statement added.

The association also noted that it had brought forward this initiative several times already, but it was blocked in parliament every time.

Earlier in December, Sergiy Tomilenko, the union's president, said that journalists in Ukraine had been attacked 78 times since the beginning of the year.