A group of Verkhovna Rada deputies from the Servants of the People party, led by the former top manager of the 1+1 TV channel, and now Head of the Information Policy Committee Alexander Tkachenko, have drafted a new bill to regulate Ukraine’s entire media environment, Head of the Central Executive Committee of the Donetsk Republic Public Movement Alexei Muratov told a correspondent of the DPR Official Website.
“In fact, by adopting this law, the full and complete censorship will be introduced in all the information activity areas in the ‘independent’ Ukraine — in printed media, on television and radio, as well as on the Internet.
Sanctions will imposed not on large editions and holdings alone, but on ordinary bloggers as well. Moreover, the decision on the punishment will now be made solely by the National TV and Radio Broadcasting Board. They promise that the offending sites will be blocked within two days. At the same time, the list of violations for which journalists will be punished has been significantly expanded.
For example, in the draft law there is provisioned an explicit prohibition to positively image the Communist leaders of the USSR — from district committees secretaries to higher-level staff, as well as Soviet law enforcement agencies, except for those who developed the Ukrainian language and culture. Thus, after the adoption of the law, it will prohibited to talk about how many roads, hospitals, planes or factories were built under the Communists.
The bill also contains an explicit prohibition to “justify the occupation” of a part of Ukraine, as well as to deny the territorial integrity of the country. In fact, this item can be interpreted as a ban on talking about any positive processes in the DPR and LPR territories and in the Crimea, which might “justify the occupation.” For example, one will not be able to say that utility rates in Donetsk are lower than in Kiev or Mariupol.
The committee can consider this project on Monday, January 13, then it will be submitted to the hall for adoption on first reading and taken as a basis on January 16. After that Zelensky and his team will be able to stifle all objectionable media and even bloggers. Therefore, there is no need to say that freedom of speech is operating in Ukraine. Rather, on the contrary, the Servants of the People are preparing a solemn funeral of this very freedom of speech,” he said.