Privitising State/municipal print media – Ukraine

There were an awful lot of low profile but interesting things said at the Party of Regions Council meeting at which both President Yanukovych and Prime Minister Azarov were present on 21st March – some of which made it to the President’s website.

So many in fact, I may return to the statements and comments of the meeting over the next few days.

However, today, I will pick up on the issue of the privitisation of the State and municipal print media – a necessary privitisation in line with the commitments of Ukraine to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

It would seem the President is rather tired of waiting for this to happen and has issued a direct instruction for this matter to be legislatively prepared and submitted to the RADA by 5th April.

Hmmm!

Firstly, it is of course quite right that Ukraine honour its international commitments – but -

The President’s instruction calls for the input of journalists, editors and professional associations for this legislative bill.  Today is 22nd March.  Unless there has been considerable work on this bill already – including their input – then the time line would seem either impossible to achieve, or the result of the legislation will leave much to be desired.

That said, as is so often the case, Ukraine is not reinventing the wheel here – it is not the only FSU/Warsaw Pact nation to have to deal with this issue.  Many have successfully managed it already.  Models and legislation therefore already exist amongst Ukraine’s neighbours – albeit every nation is slightly different.

Arguably this privitisation is one of the easiest and less politically fraught ways of displaying progress in media reforms – as demanded by both the EU and CoE respectively, whilst not forcing the oligarchy to hold media assets that are not part of their core business to save the media falling under the control of the opposition – if indeed they have that much interest in owning it.

After all, what exactly does the State and municipal print media produce that could rival the TV, radio and on-line media assets controlled by the oligarchy?  What immediate danger is there in privitising those who, in the main,  produce forms, books and information pamphlets – particularly when any owner of a newly privitised print company will be needing the national and local government work to survive whilst they try and expand into other areas of print?

But therein is the problem for would-be owners when this privitisation comes to pass.

Buying such entities leaves a heavy reliance on the patriarchal benevolence of central and/or local government to have continued State and municipal work come your way.

Given the issues facing print media in general via the competition from TV, radio and the Internet, what chance of meaningful and profitable expansion?

In short, unless you are guaranteed a lucrative central/local government contract – for example the production of biometric passports, or the Odessa City Administration contract for forms and pamphleteering – why would you entertain buying a privitised State print entity?  You would surely have to sit very comfortably within the existing national or local patriarchy to entertain the idea.

That being so, whilst it is an international commitment of Ukraine to privatise the State and municipal print media, any successful privitisation would seem destined to simply give control of the State/municipality entities to vested interests via nothing more than an intermediary/shell in practice.

You wonder whether, perhaps, such entities could have been spun off to become something similar to a “University Press” – possibly under an LLC protective umbrella for respective universities – and then such municipal funds spent for books, pamphlets and forms et al., could at least then be used to off-set the costs of – or indeed expand – the universities in local cities and towns.

It is just one thought that comes to mind without spending no more than 5 seconds contemplating the issue.  If I gave it more thought, undoubtedly other, and perhaps better,  proposals would come to mind.

Anyway – two immediate issues come to mind.  The legislative time table, and lack of time to arrive at anything resembling decent legislation – and secondly, who will want to buy such entities without some form of long term guarantee of continued work from the State/local government?

If such guarantees are forthcoming, then these entities will most certainly be bought by those who sit snuggly within the patriarchy.  Is that then privitisation – or cronyism/corruption adopted under the cloak of promises to the EU and Council of Europe?

Ukrainian media and the rule of law – International Commentary

28th January was a bit of a strange day for Ukrainian media and the rule of law in the nation with regards to international commentary.

In what was an absolutely foregone ruling, Aleksie Pukash was quite rightly jailed for life for his part in the murder of Gregory Gongadze – something hailed as a “milestone toward justice” by the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists.

I have to say “milestone towards justice” seems a little overenthusiastic when it comes to metaphors, considering those who gave instruction to Pukash to carry out this heinous act remain free and were not implicated in the Pukash court ruling.  Plus, as I say, the verdict was never in doubt.

On the same day, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) issued its “State of Media Freedom in Europe” report in which there are significant issues concerning Russia, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the UK, Bulgaria, Belarus, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Serbia, FYR Macedonia and of course Ukraine.

“Ukraine

82. Regarding the investigations of the murder in 2000 of Georgiy Gongadze, an investigative journalist
and founder of the Ukrainska Pravda (Ukraine Truth) website, the trial began in April 2011 against Olexiy
Pukach, a former Interior Ministry official, who had reportedly confessed to playing a direct part in the murder
of Gongadze. As journalists and other members of the public have been barred from the proceedings, the
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) described the secrecy and irregularities in the Pukach trial and the
previous failures to deliver prompt and impartial justice as significant setbacks in the fight against impunity.
The CPJ reported that in 2011 journalists in Ukraine continued to face persistent danger from threats and
physical attacks, and suffered censorship.

83. In March 2010, Vasyl Demyaniv, the editor of independent newspaper Kolomoyiskiy Vestnyk, suffered
a fractured skull and knee injuries when he was attacked in a public street. Two defendants were convicted
and the motive was said to have been robbery, but Demyaniv stated that the two convicted men were
innocent and that he had been attacked in retaliation for critical reporting on local government issues.

84. The Institute of Mass Information, a Kiev-based media monitoring organisation, reported that at least
25 physical assaults took place against journalists because of their work during the period from 2010 to
2011. The IMI disputes a claim by the Interior Minister that the great majority of those attacks against
journalists are unrelated to their work. The IMI says that in at least ten cases the perpetrators were law
enforcement agents or other public officials.

85. In Ukraine, the presidential election of January and February 2010 was marred by blatantly partisan
coverage by various media favouring one or other of the two main rival candidates, Viktor Yanukovich and
Yulia Tymoshenko. TV channels allowed candidates to pay to appear and to place pre-recoded material on
news and current affairs programmes, undermining the principle of media independence and objectivity. The
ODIHR election observation mission noted that regional media consistently showed a bias in favour of the
regional party or parties in power in each case. ODIHR recommended that rules on coverage of government
ministers or others holding public office should forbid broadcasters from giving them privileged treatment in
coverage during campaign periods. It also called for the state National Television Company of Ukraine to be
transformed into a public service broadcaster. The government has initiated moves to do so and every effort
should be made to implement the proposal without delay and in line with Council of Europe standards on
impartiality and independence.“

Not much surprising in any of that – other than how little content there actually is relating to Ukraine.

Will any of what was written about Ukraine by the CPJ or PACE change the way media operates in Ukraine despite their encouragement?  Of course not.  What will change the way media operates in Ukraine is the split of the oligarchy from “the family” within the Party of Regions when it comes to media manipulation – at least for the time being.

As the 2015 presidential elections get closer, you have to foresee a situation where “the family” will be forced into the backseat once again in favour of the oligarchy media assets as fas as President Yanukovych is concerned – thus their inclusion back to the inner, inner circle is likely to begin in 2014.

Hopefully by that time, the oligarchy will have been left out in the cold slightly too long and will have  found a horse they prefer to back other than Yanukovych.

Time will tell.

Azerbaijan PACE debate and the consequences for Ukraine

No this blog is not going to change theme and become a Council of Europe/PACE watchers commentary, despite the entries of the past few days.  However with Ukraine holding the Chair of OSCE for 2013, I will obviously be commenting a little more on the occurrences of an international organisation that often seemingly runs in parallel to that currently chaired by Ukraine.

Thus, following along the recent entries relating to the Council of Europe/PACE and Ukraine, 2 days ago in what may have had significant implications for the Ukrainian opposition, civil society and media, PACE debated the situation in Azerbaijan (a situation decidedly worse than currently exists in Ukraine for opposition politicians, NGOs and media alike).

In short there were 2 reports being considered by PACE in relation to Azerbaijan.  The first (Doc 13084) to continue with the status quo of “monitoring” the situation and stress the requirements and obligations to the Council of Europe by Azerbaijan.  This was adopted (196 votes in favour, 13 against and 16 abstentions) and effectively continued the existing arrangements and dialogue without rocking the boat.

The second (Doc 13079 – No official link to unadopted text was found at the time of writing) which in summary related to actually doing something about State pressure and political prisoners within Azerbaijan.  This report was not adopted (70 votes in favour, against 125, abstentions 20) – despite I would add, some vigorous supportive lobbying by some of the Ukrainian opposition party members that are included in the Ukrainian PACE delegation.

MPs Oleksandr Shevchenko (Svoboda) and Pavlo Riabikin (UDAR) voted for the resolution. Batkivshchyna MP Volodymyr Ariev abstained, while other BYuT MPs, Serhiy Sobolev and Lesia Orobets, did not participate in the vote. Representatives of the Party of Regions and the Communist Party voted against the document.

It would be kindly of me to think that the Ukrainian opposition members within the Ukrainian PACE delegation felt they were acting purely in support of others they feel are politically repressed (if not more so) than they feel – and thus there was no ulterior motive for their support and very active lobbying  – but I know personally Ukrainian politicians from most parties including from within the opposition ranks, and thus I am not that generous of thought with regards to their motivation for anything they do regardless of their political affiliations.  Likewise it would kindly of me to think Mr Sobolev simply was unavoidably absent rather than thinking of his personal future prospects with Ms Tymoshenko remaining in jail.  Had the opposition won that last parliamentary elections, it is widely rumoured he would have been Prime Minister.

One can only presume that the opposition members of the Ukrainian delegation that sought to get the second report adopted less so for those affected in Azerbaijan, but in order to set a precedent there, that could then be argued for with regards to other nations and thus be rolled out – those nations including Ukraine – naturally – and ergo serving the interests of the opposition.

The reasons for those amongst the opposition that failed to vote in favour of this report seem only to have personal gain as a motive.

Those that tried to get the report adopted were quite right to try and seize the opportunity presented to them, but fell a very long way short of getting the report adopted.

Thus if PACE will not move on Azerbaijan when deliberating the adoption of reports over issues such as political prisoners, there is not much hope that it will do so in any meaningful way when it comes to Ukraine – other than “monitoring” – as in Azerbaijan.  A situation not helped by the leading opposition figures amongst the Ukrainian delegation!

One suspects that numerous sovereign national interests (and some personal ones) trumped values once again – for the time being at least.

Executing ECHR judgements

Following on from yesterday’s Council of Europe theme, we now have calls from PACE for a significant number of its members to create bodies to insure the execution of ECHR rulings.

Of those nations, 5 are EU nations and the others are not.  They are  Poland, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Moldova and of course, Ukraine.

It appears that PACE is calling upon these nations to create an agency responsible for insuring ECHR rulings are executed, which is fine as far as it goes, however it can hardly be claimed that all ECHR rulings are executed (in a timely fashion or not) within all the other member states that are deemed to have suitable mechanisms to do so.

The last paragraph of the above link could be very interesting.

“The Council of Europe governments are also called on to “increase pressure and take firmer measures” in cases of dilatory and continuous non-compliance with the European Court’s judgments.”

Interesting insofar as “dilatory and continuous non-compliance” may have some rather unexpected offenders - or maybe not that unexpected actually.

Ukraine PACE delegation showing signs of maturity?

Well, without fisty-cuffs, bribery, coercion, scandal, or even a raised voice, the Ukrainian delegation to PACE has managed to sort itself out administratively – probably due to the fact that the meeting to discuss the Ukrainian PACE delegation organogram was delayed by bad weather as participants were stuck at various European airports, thus reducing the time for showboating around “positions” and “interests” and forcing all involved to head directly to their the base positions of “needs” between scheduled PACE meetings.

As a result the composition of the Ukrainian PACE delegation and PACE committees have been resolved – swiftly – with equal representation for Ukrainian majority and minority politicians.

My only comment relates to the fact that the United Opposition could find nobody better than Serhiy Sobolev to fill the position of Deputy Chairman in that international role.  There must surely have been better people to take it on than him.

Domestic violence – Council of Europe and Ukraine

The world is full of good causes and those in need of assistance – regardless of whether a nation is developed, developing, or indeed not much more than a failed state.

For me it has always been a bit of a dilemma what to support and what I won’t.  When I ran my companies in the UK, as a board, we decided to nominate and sponsor 3 charities each year and simply rebuff any other approaches.  It made life relatively simple and tended to give all staff a justified reason to repel all other charity approaches – which were a regular occurrence.

It is not so easy to be so clinical now I have been living in Ukraine for a decade and am free from the rat race of corporate life.  I have plenty of time to see causes all around me worthy of support in a very direct way.

My involvement in a disabled charity which was fairly large some years ago when it first registered, is now minimal, as I am a firm believer that any Ukrainian cause should be driven by Ukrainian people.  Thus as that particular charity is now being driven quite well by Ukrainian people, I have all-but bowed out.

Disability is one of those causes that has always struck a chord with me.  Others are human trafficking, domestic violence and local government issues.

As regular readers of this blog will know, in the past month or so, I have been approached by some Ukrainian civic minded people to get involved in new NGOs dealing with human trafficking, domestic violence and local government.

In order to set up an effective NGO, internal systems, external contacts and all the other operational matters, quite simply it is a lot of work to do one – let alone three.

So having looked at what exists in Odessa already, local government was struck from the list – for now anyway – leaving human trafficking and domestic violence as the two potential NGOs for which I have been approached that I would happily get involved in.

I eventually decided to progress with those wanting to set up a human trafficking NGO in Odessa rather than domestic violence – although it was a difficult decision.

The reasons for human trafficking coming out on top are simply that my knowledge of English will be more of a benefit when dealing with foreign NGOs of similar leaning, my diplomatic, political and “other persons of influence” connections pretty much cover most of the EU, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and Egypt.  All areas relevant to human trafficking from and through Ukraine.

Hopefully this new NGO will become reality in the new year when NGO registration becomes much easier to do and the new laws relating to NGOs come into effect.  We will see.

Anyway, returning to domestic violence, something from which no nation on earth is immune, it seems the Council of Europe (PACE) and Ukraine are to take steps to address the issue.

It seems that legislation will be amended, agencies forced to take particular notice of the issue, and a general awareness campaign launched – which is all necessary and jolly good – except when I was doing my due diligence over which NGOs were needed, and more importantly which I would and could be most useful for, much more than upgrading legislation,the reeducation/focusing of agencies and public on the issue needs to be done in far more practical ways.

None of the above will have much, if any effect on the prevention of domestic violence.  It may only have little additional  benefits via the judicial and law enforcement agencies reactively as well.

In Odessa I found no short term sheltered accommodation (with or without security) for victims of domestic violence to stay for a few days whilst wounds heal and clear thoughts for the future could be formulated by the victims.

Upon asking several departments of the police here, it appears there are no dedicated domestic violence units.  It also appeared on speaking to them there are few multi-agency meetings over such matters.  Panic alarms if they exist are never fitted in cases where serious potential harm may occur when offenders are still at large.  Pretty much everything you would expect to find in every UK constabulary by way of specially trained officers, sheltered accommodation, dedicated multi-agency approaches et al – simply doesn’t exist – or if it does, nobody I spoke with knew of its existence.

Again, I will caveat the above two paragraphs by stating that just because those I spoke to, who I felt should know of, but didn’t know of any facilities or standard multi-agency approaches, that doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t exist.  They may well do – it’s just that it could be more or less an unofficial secret for some unbeknown reason – like so many things in Ukraine to be honest.

This website does exist, however when I called the helpline to find out what assistance it offers, I got no reply.  Maybe they were busy as to be fair I only called once.

However, on the presumption those I spoke to should know and would know, seriously, no place of safety for victims to go for a few days in the absence of anywhere else?  Victims of domestic violence have a choice of the street or remaining in a place where they are abused?  Not everybody has friends or family that would or could accommodate them, and even if they did, not every victim would want to take those options for a multitude of reasons.

Of course most people will think of domestic violence towards women in particular, and as that is undoubtedly the largest group subjected to domestic violence it is only natural, thus the PACE scheme specifically targeting that group, however I am also thinking about violence towards pensioners who quite often live with their children and inherited in-laws, children indirectly suffering within abusive relationships, and of course men.  Men are not immune from being the victim either.

So, whilst it is all very good, and indeed necessary, to create new laws, amend existing laws, focus the priorities of Ukraine’s agencies on this issue etc, there seems to be a serious need for very practical and very real physical assets to be  created/set aside/dedicated to actually address both the immediate aftermath of domestic violence as well as longer term assistance with the most difficult and serious of cases that often are quite protracted in their resolution.  Not to mention an equally important preventative program as well.

Without that very real social safety net and awareness, the domestic homicide rate will remain unnecessarily high, as will assaults resulting in extremely serious injury – and ultimately Ukraine will fail to meet the standards of PACE should it ever actually sign and ratify what is currently only an initialed Council of Europe Convention by Ukraine.

A lot to do here for Ukraine as a government (of which ever colour or stripe) both national and regional, for civil society, for philanthropists and for society and the volunteers within – because as with anything that will actually work, it will have to ultimately be Ukrainian led – top down and bottom up, in tandem – both with regards to prevention and the aftermath.

Having written all that, it is easy to feel I have chosen to get involved with the easier of the NGOs when it comes to their dedicated task – and maybe I have – however, it is the one that fits the “who I know and what I can do” category more effectively when it comes to the benefits the NGO would get from asking me to get involved – and if the human trafficking NGO doesn’t fly for whatever reason, maybe the newly forming domestic violence NGO will still want my help in some way.

Anyway, it seems that both the Council of Europe and Ukraine are going to attempt to do something together – which may or may not actually be better than nothing.  We will see.

When a “political prisoner” is not a “political prisoner”

Only a few days ago I wrote a short entry stating PACE/Council of Europe had eventually defined “political prisoner“.

The definition is thus:

“A person deprived of his or her personal liberty is to be regarded as a “political prisoner”:

a. if the detention has been imposed in violation of one of the fundamental guarantees set out in the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocols (ECHR), in particular freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression and information, freedom of assembly and association;

b. if the detention has been imposed for purely political reasons without connection to any offence;

c. if, for political motives, the length of the detention or its conditions are clearly out of proportion to the offence the person has been found guilty of or is suspected of;

d. if, for political motives, he or she is detained in a discriminatory manner as compared to other persons; or,

e. if the detention is the result of proceedings which were clearly unfair and this appears to be connected with political motives of the authorities.” 

In and amongst that text, most people would find a clause that would fit the cases of Ms Tymoshenko and Mr Lutsenko using the “reasonable person” context and a simple understanding and inference from the text.

Thus most people would arrive at the belief that both are indeed “political prisoners” as far as the Council of Europe/PACE are concerned – under their own definition.

But they would be wrong.  At least they would be wrong at the moment.

When put to the Council of Europe that they now must consider Tymoshenko and Lutsenk “political prisoners”, the Council of Europe stated both are not considered as such, although the charges against them are considered “politically motivated”.

It seems that the new legal definition of “political prisoners” adopted by PACE/Council of Europe will now be looked at legally in respect to all those who may fall under that description in Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia etc on a case by case basis before being formally included or excluded from the “political prisoner” category.

That, we are told by the Council of Europe, may take anywhere between 6 months if such decisions are made by a Judicial Committee – or between 2 and 3 years if a formal Council of Europe resolution is required.

The up-shot is then, despite having eventually arrived at a definition of a “political prisoner”, there are as yet no “political prisoners” within the Council of Europe/PACE nations, because each instance has to be legally reviewed against the new definition to see if it applies – or more cynically, whether there is sufficient legal wiggle room for it not to apply.

As yet, it is unclear just what level of internal authority is required to assess, and then deem, “Citizen X” a political prisoner in “Country Y” and whether the ideological definition and inferences therein, will also match any legal interpretations.

Blimey!

Council of Europe defines “Political Prisoner”

Very quietly and without much fanfare, on Thursday the Council of Europe (PACE) eventually committed itself to a legal definition of who can be classified as a “political prisoner”.

Needless to say it will have some ramifications for all CoE member states as well as the ECfHR, be those ramification great or small.

It necessarily has ramifications on Ukraine with Ms Tymoshenko’s appeal soon to be heard regarding her imprisonment over “misuse of office”.

The parameters set to define a political prisoner are thus:

“A person deprived of his or her personal liberty is to be regarded as a ‘political prisoner’:

a. if the detention has been imposed in violation of one of the fundamental guarantees set out in the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocols (ECHR), in particular freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression and information, freedom of assembly and association;

b. if the detention has been imposed for purely political reasons without connection to any offence;

c. if, for political motives, the length of the detention or its conditions are clearly out of proportion to the offence the person has been found guilty of or is suspected of;

d. if, for political motives, he or she is detained in a discriminatory manner as compared to other persons; or,

e. if the detention is the result of proceedings which were clearly unfair and this appears to be connected with political motives of the authorities.”

The full statement from the Council of Europe is here.