The Head of the "Anti-Corruption Action Center" (Ukrainian civic organization fighting against corruption) Vitaliy Shabunin criticized the disconnection of digital broadcasting from Espresso, Direct and Channel 5 TV channels, calling it a very bad step by the Presidentʼs Office.
He wrote about this on Facebook.
"Thatʼs how Putinʼs censorship of the media began. Ukraine mustnʼt be humiliated by such decisions. I really want to believe that Zelensky did not sanction this decision, and this is Yermakʼs initiative [head of the Presidentʼs Office] and others", he said.
Shabunin stressed that this situation looks bad against the background of, for example, the fact that the Ukrainian police system continues to be "run by the Russian [Oleh] Tatarov", who, according to him, helped fugitive suspect Viktor Medvedchuk and former Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Viktor Yanukovych Andriy Portnov.
The editor of European Pravda, Serhiy Sydorenko, also stated that the shutdown of these TV channels was political censorship.
What happened?
On Monday, April 4, Espresso, Direct and Channel 5 TV channels announced in an open letter that the Broadcasting, Radio, and Television Concern turned off their broadcasting. They are currently only available on YouTube. Channel reporters said the decision was made by the Presidentʼs Office. They consider it illegal, because "there is no document that would give grounds for the BRT concern to disconnect TV channels from broadcasting at night". Journalists demand that speech be resumed immediately.
The National Broadcasting Council did not publish any decision. President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Office have not yet responded to the statement.