CITIZENS NEWS

Zelenskyy signs new measure dramatically scaling back press freedom as liberty continues to die in Ukraine

By jdheyes // 2023-01-03

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is beginning to govern more like his Russian nemesis by the day, as evidenced by his recent signature on a new bill that further restricts press freedoms in his country. As war continues to rage following Russia's invasion nearly a year ago, Zelenskyy is doing nothing to prove he is worthy of the tens of billions of dollars real democracies throughout the West are throwing at him. "The legislation significantly increases the powers of Ukraine’s state broadcasting regulator to allow it to regulate both the print and online news media," Reclaim the Net reports. "Further, it allows for fines to be imposed on media outlets, their licenses to be revoked without due process, and even some websites to be temporarily blocked without going through the courts. Finally, it gives the regulator authority to order search giants such as Google and other social media platforms to remove content." Come to think of it, that sounds an awful lot like our own government, which pressed American social media companies to censor content and ban users throughout Donald Trump's administration, obviously without his knowledge and never to his advantage. Reclaim the Net notes further: Zelensky’s actions are already being criticized by press freedom advocates. As this bill moved through Parliament, members of international organizations such as the European Federation of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists expressed their concerns about its provisions. “The coercive regulation envisaged by the bill and in the hands of a regulator totally controlled by the government is worthy of the worst authoritarian regimes. It must be withdrawn. A state that would apply such provisions simply has no place in the European Union,” said EFJ General Secretary Ricardo Gutiérrez. “Media regulation should be implemented by a body independent of the government and its objective should be media independence, not media control,” Gutiérrez added. “Ukraine’s media bill seriously imperils press freedom in the country by tightening government control over information at a time when citizens need it the most,” Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, added in a statement, according to Reclaim the Net. “Ukrainian legislators should abandon the bill, or at least pause its progress in parliament until the European Union can weigh in with recommendations.” The site added: Members of Ukraine’s National Union of Journalists strongly opposed the bill due to its potential to reduce fundamental freedoms within the country. Nevertheless, Yevheniia Kravchuk, the deputy chairperson for Parliament’s Information Policy Committee contradicted those worries by stating that Ukraine’s media legislation had not been updated since the absence of the internet 16 years prior. This new broader bill was needed to bring their media laws up to date and provide greater access to accurate information and technologies. Meanwhile, earlier this year, a Dutch journalist who had been covering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine said the Western media is routinely lying about what is actually taking place in the war-torn country in an effort to maintain a “blame Moscow” narrative. Sonja van den Ende, an independent journalist from Rotterdam, Netherlands, said the Western media “lie continuously about everything just to implement their own agenda.” Van den Ende is not reporting from the comfort of a safe studio somewhere in a Western capital, but rather, she is on the ground in Ukraine and has witnessed the invasion and its atrocities on both sides for weeks, noting that at present, there are “only a handful” of Western journalists in the hotspot of Donbas. As such, Western press outlets are simply “rubber-stamping fake news” just as they did during the Iraq, Syria, and Afghan wars. With Western press lying about what is happening in Ukraine and Zelenskyy and his government moving to silence the country's media, there should be no reason American taxpayers are forced to continue sending tax money there. If they can't be sure they're being told the truth, then they shouldn't have to pay to be lied to. Sources include: NaturalNews.com ReclaimTheNet.org

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