Experts of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, human rights defender Volodymyr Yavorskyi and constitutionalist lawyer Vsevolod Rechytskyi note that in the European Union, the state does not regulate print and online media, in contrast to the provisions of the law On Media that were recently adopted by the Verkhovna Rada and provide for such a possibility.
They stated this in an interview on the website of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group.
"Today, in the EU, there is no regulation of print and online media at all, they are regulated as subjects of information dissemination. That is, as subjects of telecommunication services. They can voluntarily register as mass media, but there is no obligation to do so. Also, as I already said, they are not registered in the absolute majority of EU countries. This is significantly different from our law," Yavorskyi emphasized.
He fears that the provisions of the law can be applied not only against Russian propaganda, as the authors of the document promise, but also against opposition Ukrainian media.
“I also criticize the expansion of the powers of the regulator,” said Rechytskyi.
"The state should not be the controller of the information that reaches the people, because the people is higher than the state. And this law is structured in such a way that the state, through the National Council, carries out information control, and filtering, installs de facto and de jure filters on information flows, and determines which information to pass to people, and which to hide or prohibit. In my opinion, this is the main drawback of this law," Rechytskyi notes.
As earlier reported, Rechytskyi also emphasizes in this interview that the Media Law actually introduces censorship while formally it is destined to prohibit it.
The International Federation of Journalists calls on the Ukrainian authorities to review the law On Media recently adopted by the Verkhovna Rada and signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and to start a dialogue with journalist unions and the media sector.
The European Federation of Journalists called on the Ukrainian government to postpone the bill On Media. The bill was also criticized in the OSCE.
The bill on media is not supported by the vast majority of print media editors.
Critical materials about this law were also published by the Western press, in particular The New York Times.
The main focus of criticism is the excessive expansion of the National Council's powers over television, which has been given the authority to regulate all media, including online and print media, and giving the National Council the right to extrajudicially terminate or suspend the media.
The law enters into force on March 31, three months after its publication.
Who we are: About us, Contacts. How we write news and our principles: Editorial code. We did our best. If you found this valuable – please support us.
To request a correction, please send an email.