14 December 2022, Wednesday, 20:21 306

Zelenskyy Is Asked To Veto Law On Media, Which Allows Closing Mass Media Without Court Decision

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

On the website of the Official Internet Representation of the President of Ukraine, signatures are being collected in support of an electronic petition on the need to veto the bill 2693-d "On Media", which allows mass media to be closed without a court decision.

This is evidenced by data on the president's website.

The corresponding petition was registered today, December 14, and as of now, it has received 96 votes out of the 25,000 required for its consideration.

"We appeal to the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to veto the bill 2693-d "On Media" adopted by the Verkhovna Rada, which allows the closure of independent mass media. The adopted bill allows the authorities to block online publications without a court decision, only by decision of the of the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting. Also, the National Council, which should actually be in charge of television and radio, will now regulate Ukrainian online publications.

In addition, the bill contains a number of relaxations for the Russian-language media industry. In particular, the law contains:

reduction of the Ukrainian song quota on the radio by 10%;
the return of Russian actors to the screens due to the leveling of the list of persons who pose a threat to the national security;
cancellation of the ban on the popularization of the Russian authorities and their individual representatives in TV programs and films;
cancellation of the ban on humiliating and insulting the Ukrainian language in films;
permission for TV channels to broadcast films in Russian;
lifting the ban on songs by Russian singers.

“In addition, the document proposes to introduce regulation of the activities of bloggers and various web platforms (such as Netflix or Facebook)," the text of electronic petition No. 22/173346-ep states.

It should be noted that the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) called on the Ukrainian government to postpone the bill "On Media". The bill was also criticized in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

The bill on media is not supported by the vast majority of print media editors. Also, a member of the board of the Ukrainian Internet Association, Maksym Tulyev, believes that if the bill on media is adopted, the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting will become a worse institution than Russia's Roskomnadzor.

The main legal directorate of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine believes that the bill "On Media" does not sufficiently take into account the constitutional prescription on the prohibition of censorship. In addition, according to the assessment of the legal administration, the norms of the Directive of the European Parliament regarding the status of the regulator are insufficiently taken into account.

The National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) issued a statement in which it sharply criticized the bill and called for its consideration to be postponed until Ukraine wins the war.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on December 13, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a law on media, which was opposed by Western journalists and the OSCE.

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