KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th July, 2020) Ukraine's National Union of Journalists has been alerted to 40 cases of violence against media workers this year, Sergiy Tomilenko, the trade union's president, said on Monday.
"The National Union of Journalists of Ukraine recorded 10 incidents of physical violence against media workers in June. Three of them occurred during the filming of quarantine violations. A total of 40 incidents of violence against media were recorded in the first six months of 2020," Tomilenko wrote on Facebook.
Tomilenko also said he had asked the media watchdog with the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to assess the latest changes to the bill on Ukrainian media. Harlem Desir criticized the draft submitted to parliament in January for trying to legalize state interference.
Tomilenko called for scrutiny of the revamped legislation to see whether it was in breach of Ukraine's commitments to OSCE values, such as freedom of speech. He added that OSCE experts had been invited to a debate on the bill organized by the journalists' union.
