Journalists of Bihus.Info still notice unknown people who followed them during the preparation of the material about the teamʼs audition.
Editor and journalist of the Bihus.Info project Alisa Yurchenko stated this on the air of "Radio Svoboda" ("Svoboda.Ranok" project).
"We kept spotting spies under the office. That is, typical groups that walked around the office building. When we asked them what they were doing there, they could not clearly answer the question, why they got lost and just circled around the office. Again, cars with fake number plates, all this continued. Maybe the previous couple of days were less, but before it was clear that we were definitely coming out with this material, it was active, yes," noted Yurchenko.
Commenting on the facts of surveillance of the editorial office established during the investigation, she says that this is "a grandiose violation of human rights and interference in private life and pressure on the editorial office." However, the team cannot yet say who exactly is the customer of this case.
What preceded
On January 16, a video appeared on the Internet, where employees of the Bihus.Info investigation project are allegedly using drugs. The video was shot on a camera placed in a rented house where the employees had a corporate party. The video also included recordings of phone conversations of project workers. Journalists believe that they have been followed for at least several months.
The head of the project Denys Bigus in a video address to the audience, announced the dismissal of the operators caught on video. Later, he added that journalists had been following his project for almost a year. SBU is investigating the illegal wiretapping of Bihus.Info employees. Also, the lawyers of the Bihus.Info editorial office appealed to the law enforcement officers with statements under several articles — in particular, regarding violation of privacy and obstruction of journalistsʼ activities.
In the investigation, which came out on February 5, the investigators said that the journalists were monitored by the State Security Department of the Security Service of Ukraine — more than 30 people participated in the operation, who were identified thanks to the video from the cameras of the hotel where the editorial office was located on December 27 of last year. In a telephone conversation with Bihus.Info, the dismissed head of the Department for the Protection of National Statehood (DPNS) Roman Semenchenko did not deny the involvement of DPNS in this operation.