US politician: Journalists in Ukraine barred for reports on UOC persecution
Catherine Whiteford stated that the persecution of the UOC is being downplayed in the U.S. press.
American politician Catherine Whiteford expressed support for Senator J.D. Vance in her post on the social media platform X and highlighted the situation of the UOJ journalists who are imprisoned for their reports on religious persecution.
“I started following Senator @JDVance for the last year before he was chosen as the VP nominee because I appreciated his willingness to point out that our American foreign policy has been, in large part, a disaster," Whiteford wrote, adding that she considers Vance to be "an independent thinker willing to say what he believes."
Whiteford also discussed the letters that Ukrainian Orthodox journalists, who are imprisoned for their reports, sent to Senator Vance: "Many people, like myself, within the Orthodox Christian community have appreciated his nuanced approach to the Ukraine war, and that is why Ukrainian Orthodox journalists who are imprisoned for reporting on religious persecution wrote letters to Senator JD Vance in hopes that he could shine a light on the injustice going on."
She expressed hope that attention to this issue would help change the U.S. approach to supporting Ukraine.
The politician also noted that this issue is not being discussed in mainstream media: "Our tax dollars are helping to fund a government in Ukraine that is perfectly willing to imprison people for speech, but you won't hear about this in the mainstream media since it doesn't fit into a black and white narrative."
As previously reported, UOJ journalists mentioned in their letters to the Senator that they have been behind bars for about six months for defending the UOC, which Vance has supported.