OSCE should condemn Ukrainian ban on Russian reporters - Lavrov
GENEVA. March 2 (Interfax) - Russia is counting on an adequate reaction by the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) special representative on freedom of the media to the Ukrainian ban of Russian reporters, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"What is happening to Russian journalists in Ukraine cannot be justified, I am not even talking about tragedies where some of your comrades paid with their lives for their desire to work in the hostility zone and tell the truth about what happens there," Lavrov told reporters in Geneva.
Ukraine's total ban on Russian reporters is completely inappropriate, he said.
"We hope that the institution of the OSCE representative on freedom of the media, created specifically to protect journalists, will perform its obligations fully and in good faith," Lavrov said.
International organizations, including the United Nations and the OSCE, have fundamental documents stipulating journalists' right to tell public the truth about what happens. "And they must be complied with," Lavrov said.
Late last week the OSCE representative on freedom of the media, Dunja Mijatovic, called Kyiv's decision to restrict the work of Russian journalists 'excessive'.
On February 12, Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada revoked the accreditation of about 100 Russian media outlets, without providing the list of such outlets and the reasons for the revocation, Mijatovic said in her statement.
The lack of transparency on this issue raises concerns, she said, urging the authorities to publicize the reasons for the move and the full list of banned media outlets.
She also noted that on February 25 Ukrainian law enforcement authorities arrested journalists from two Russian television companies, Channel One and NTV. The journalists were expelled to Russia and banned from entering Ukraine for five years. On the same time, another journalist, from NTV, was not allowed into Ukraine, Mijatovic said.
The OSCE's reaction to the Ukrainian ban on Russian reporters raises doubts about impartiality of this organization, Lavrov said at the 28th session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC).
"When the OSCE representative on freedom of the media calls the ban on the Russian media in Ukraine merely 'excessive,' serious doubts arise about impartiality of this institution," he said.
"And all this against the backdrop of a campaign in the OSCE's western countries in favor of protecting the rights of journalists as a special category of citizens," the Russian minister said.
"(Ukraine) has organized a total offensive against freedom of speech up to a point of trying to ban the journalistic profession," he said.