[governance] global events in non-democratic countries

Wed Sep 5 02:33:39 EDT 2012

Dear Roni,

Thank you very much for your letter.

I fully understand your concerns and share some of them.

Yes, the fact, that we showed our posters to stop censorship, will not
stop it. But we demonstrated, first of all - sorry, not we, but
Yanukovich gangsters demonstrated, that Yanukovich lies, when he says,
that there is no censorship in Ukraine at all.

Second - our faces, names, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers are
known for Yanukovich regime very well (they wiretapped us, reviewed
our correspondence, checked our personals). But now our faces and
names are known to a lot of people throughout the world. I am sure
that they will not imprison me for this action. But they really can
imprison me, for example, for Adobe Connect on my PC, claiming, that
they just fulfill their "international obligations" (even if this
Adobe is open). And I hope, a lot of people then can understand real
reasons for it.

Third, about Timoshenko and so on. No boycott or international
isolation will stop Yanukovich and his banda - only bank accounts
blocking and no visa for them and their families from international
community and real protests within Ukraine. That is why it is very
sad, that World Newspaper Congress has very high fee for
participation, and very few Ukrainians could join it to hear about
Mexican or even Russian journalists and media activists and to
establish personal contacts with foreign colleagues. You can try to
follow media coverage of WAN-IFRA in Ukraine to understand, that
Ukrainians did not receive adequate information about it at all from
national media. But they read a lot in foreign media.

Hoping to see more such events in Ukraine and in other postSoviet countries,
Best regards,
Oksana Prykhodko,
director of iNGO European Media Platform

2012/9/5 Koven Ronald <kovenronald at aol.com>:
> Dear Oksana Pryhod and All --
>
> I'm not at all sure that you're right that WAN's maintenance of its plan to
> hold its congress in Kyiv was the right decision. Only time will tell. Yes,
> it gave you a very good opportunity to demonstrate against the President,
> but who knows whether he will act to get even with you ? His goons took
> photos of all of you demonstrating.
>
> I heard a fair amount of hypocrisy in the statements about Ukraine at the
> conference. Not once did anyone mention how the government has been
> persecuting Yulia T. Was that a self-imposed red line by the conference
> participants ?
>
> I recall the debates over whether to hold a UNESCO conference on press
> freedom in Kazakhstan 20 years ago. I argued against going there and was
> told to wait and see, that it would improve things. We went and protested
> violations of press freedom. Things did improve for 2-3 years, apparently as
> a direct result. But the government gradually returned to its old habits and
> the situation now seems to be as bad or worse than when we went 20 years
> ago. And now the Kazakh government is about to hold a new conference to
> commemorate the one from 20 years ago -- in other words, they are wrapping
> its current repressive policies in the legitimacy that we gave them by going
> there back then.
>
> We had the same debate over holding the World Summit on the Information
> Society in Tunis. I do think that going there and letting the world see the
> real nature of the Ben Ali regime did prepare world opinion for the need for
> a revolution, even if freedom of expression isn't doing so well in Tunisia
> now.
>
> So, I'm not at all sure that holding the next Internet Governance Forum in
> Azerbaijan will be a net plus. On balance, I think we shouldn't be lending
> our legitimacy to dictatorships. They compete to get us to hold conferences
> in their countries precisely because they mean to use us to strengthen their
> grip on power. It doesn't always work out that way, but sometimes it does
> achieve exactly what the dictators wanted.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rony Koven, World Press Freedom Committee
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Koven Ronald <kovenronald at aol.com>
> To: oprytula <oprytula at gmail.com>; oprytula <oprytula at yahoo.com>;
> idmytrychyn <idmytrychyn at noos.fr>
> Cc: sana.pryhod <sana.pryhod at gmail.com>
> Sent: Tue, Sep 4, 2012 10:21 pm
> Subject: Fwd: [governance] global events in non-democratic countries
>
> FYI, one of the editors in the delegation that met with the President today
> told me that he replied to the criticisms by saying that Ukraine is "a
> country in transition."
>
> As a Balkan colleague remarked uopoin hearing that, "Maybe he meant 'in
> transition' from democracy."
>
> Buzi, Rony Koven
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Oksana Prykhodko <sana.pryhod at gmail.com>
> To: IG Caucus <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>
> Sent: Tue, Sep 4, 2012 6:46 pm
> Subject: [governance] global events in non-democratic countries
>
> Dear all,
>
> I would like to add new food to our old discussion about propriety to
> hold international events in non-democratic countries.
>
> Kiev just now is hosting World Newspaper Congress, with participation
> of the most influential editors and journalists from the whole world.
>
> Yesterday Jacob Mathew, President of the World Association of
> Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), gave excellent analysis of
> media situation in Ukraine, underlined main threats to media freedom.
> Then Ukrainian president Victor Yanulovich gave his interpretation of
> the same situation, stating, that there are no problems for the
> freedom of speech in Ukraine.
> During his speech 12 Ukrainian journalists and media activists (I was
> among them) stood up with critical banners. And were brutally attacked
> by Yanukovich securities.
>
> It was excellent illustration to his words, and received world-wide
> coverage (except of Ukrainian TV channels).
>
> Today 14 the most influential editors met Yanukovich and demanded to
> investigate this incident and not to persecute protesters.
>
> I really highly appreciate support of WAN-IFRA and all lessons, that
> it gave to Ukraine. And I hope that IGF in Baku will be also of great
> use to Azeris.
>
> Best regards,
> Oksana
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2012/09/03/world/europe/03reuters-ukraine-journalists-protest.html?_r=2&ref=politics
> http://www.wan-ifra.org/articles/2012/09/06/press-freedom-an-own-goal-for-ukraine
>
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