UOJ director added to Myrotvorets after press conference on S14 threats

UOJ Director Anna Poddubnaya. Photo: screenshot from the press conference

On January 29, immediately after a press conference titled “Attack on the Union of Orthodox Journalists’ Editorial Office,” at which UOJ director Anna Poddubnaya spoke about a criminal attack by radicals on the editorial office that violated freedom of speech, her personal data were added to the database of the controversial Myrotvorets website.

At the press conference, Poddubnaya said the attack on the editorial office was the first such incident in the three-year history of the Union of Orthodox Journalists. She expressed hope that the authorities would take proper measures to guarantee citizens’ constitutional rights to freedom of conscience and freedom of speech.

As seen in a screenshot of the Myrotvorets page, Poddubnaya’s personal data were published immediately after the briefing ended, which the outlet described as another act of pressure on journalists.

On Thursday, January 25, people in balaclavas bearing the symbols of the nationalist organization S14 broke into the UOJ office and blocked the newsroom’s work. For about an hour, they insulted journalists and provoked a confrontation while police who arrived at the scene failed to act.

Earlier, the name of Metropolitan Volodymyr of Pochaiv, abbot of the Holy Dormition Pochaiv Lavra, was added to the “Purgatory” section of Myrotvorets for calling on the faithful to “persuade not by the force of arms, but by the power of words.”

On May 11, 2016, Myrotvorets published the full personal data, addresses, and phone numbers of several thousand journalists from around the world, sparking an international scandal. On September 12, 2017, the UN called on Ukraine to urgently investigate the activity of the Myrotvorets website, welcoming the opening of criminal proceedings by the National Police over the site’s activity since August 2014 under Part 1 of Article 171 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code – obstruction of journalists’ lawful professional activity.

In July 2016, Anton Herashchenko, a member of the Interior Ministry board and an MP from the People’s Front party, said that the Myrotvorets project had already included the UOJ “in its plan for close study.” The statement came after the outlet covered the All-Ukrainian Cross Procession of Peace, Love, and Prayer for Ukraine, which radicals had obstructed.

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