Journalist's lawyer reveals absurdity of UOJ news expertise to court

UOJ journalist's lawyer presenting absurdity of UOJ news expert examination results in court. Photo: UOJ

The lawyer of the defendant, a UOJ staff member Andriy Ovcharenko, quoted news articles in court that formed the basis of the accusations against his client and demonstrated the absurdity of the expert examination conducted by the SBU on these news articles.

In particular, he read out in full a UOJ news article dated June 23, 2023, titled "Head of the Ternopil UMA: Give us the Lavra, we will find a way to expel the UOC" (about the head of the Ternopil Regional State Administration, Mykhailo Holovko, demanding that the Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministry of Culture terminate the agreement with the Pochaiv Lavra and hand it over to local authorities), and a news article dated June 22, 2023, titled "US Secretary of State and UK Foreign Secretary visit UGCC Cathedral in London" (about US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, and the Secretary of State of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Oleksandr Bankov, visiting the Greek Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Family in London).

According to SBU experts who conducted the examination of these texts, they are intentionally aimed at influencing groups of the population of Ukraine and are directed towards socio-political destabilization in the country, demoralization of the people and the army, and creating information conditions for social explosion in Ukraine. These news articles contribute to undermining the morale of the population and the army of Ukraine and their misinformation. They also incite enmity towards the OCU and the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

"How can news about the visit of high-ranking officials of Britain and the USA to a Greek Catholic church influence the violations of the rights of the OCU and the Ecumenical Patriarchate?" wonders the lawyer. "This suspicion was simply made on autopilot, and these conclusions were copied, so despite the fact that these publications have nothing to do with the crux of the matter, they were still added to the expert's conclusions to form the suspicion. You don't need to be a religious expert to understand that there is no incitement of religious enmity here," said Ovcharenko's lawyer.

As the UOJ reported, the lawyer of the Orthodox journalist Valeriy Stupnitsky stated that there are grounds for doubting the results of the state examination conducted regarding the materials published on the UOJ website.

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