Attacks against journalists during full-scale invasion

On 4 May, as part of UNESCO's World Press Freedom Day in Santiago de Chile, the Public Interest Journalism Lab and The Reckoning Project will show a short documentary about Ukrainian journalists who witnessed and survived human rights violations. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the protagonists of the film, Anzhela Slobodian and Oleh Baturin, The Reckoning Project’s co-founder Nataliya Gumenyuk and Chilean journalist Andrea Moletto Rodriguez.

The information is also available in Spanish.

Independent journalists have become one of the occupiers's primary targets and have faced persecution, abduction, torture and violent death. According to IMI, there are 575 crimes against journalists including kidnappings, murders, disappearances, etc over the course of the two-year full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Human rights violations and repressions of freedom of the press and expression are committed daily.

On 4 May, we will show a documentary about Ukrainian journalists, Anzhela Slobodian and Oeh Baturin, who faced persecution in the early stages of the full-scale invasion. Together with The Reckoning Project’s co-founder, Ukrainian journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk, they will join for a discussion and give direct accounts of their fight for freedom in the line of duty. Their stories vividly illustrate how working as an independent journalist at the onset of the invasion became nearly impossible. Slobodian and Baturin eventually escaped the invaded territories, but continue to report on the horrors of the invasion. The discussion will be moderated by a prominent Chilean radio host Andrea Moletto Rodriguez.

Oleh Baturin was a journalist in Kakhovka, Kherson region, the site of one of Ukraine’s most important energy sources – the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station – when Russian troops entered the city. He was arrested and faced torture but eventually was able to escape and continued his journalistic activities, mainly being focused on the reporting of life in the affected areas, and Russia’s explosion of the Kakhovka Dam in June 2023 – the single largest environmental attack of the war.

Anzhela Slobodian worked as a correspondent for Ukraine TV and Radio Broadcasting Company, and after the full-scale invasion continued providing news coverage and broadcasting live under her name from the city of Kherson until her illegal detention on 5 July 2022. Slobodian was held captive for a month but was eventually released and fled the region. In February 2023, she testified in the People’s Court in The Hague, where she spoke about Russian captivity and violations of journalists' rights committed in Kherson.

The Reckoning Project: Ukraine Testifies is an initiative of Ukrainian and international reporters, analysts and lawyers to document human rights violations and create appealing stories that aim to provide historical documentation of the full scale invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine-based journalists and researchers collect testimonies of witnesses of the alleged war crimes, neutrally record them in accordance with a methodology that makes them applicable for use in litigation. The analysts verify them, while Ukrainian writers and documentary filmmakers create multimedia content based on the testimonies.

Nataliya Gumenyuk is a Ukrainian author and journalist specializing in conflict reporting. She is CEO and co-founder of The Public Interest Journalism Lab and The Reckoning Project devoted to human rights violations documentation. Gumenyuk reported from nearly 60 countries. Since the start of the Russian war against Ukraine in 2014, Nataliya reported from the field: Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions. After the full-scale invasion, she regularly writes for The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Rolling Stone, Die Zeit, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times. Gumenyuk is the author of the books “The Lost Island. The Tales From The Occupied Crimea”, "Maidan Tahrir. In Search Of The Lost Revolution”, and “The Scariest Days of My Life. Dispatches of The Reckoning Project”. She was co-founder and from 2015 to 2019 ran an independent TV channel Hromadske. Nataliya is a Member of the Independent Media Council, as well as the Council for Freedom Of Speech Under the President of Ukraine.

Andrea Moletto Rodriguez is a well-known Chilean radio host with an illustrious career spanning over 25 years. As the host of two widely popular current affairs programs on Radio Futuro and a daily talk show on the independent channel Vía X, she regularly interviews key figures in Chile. Her contributions extend to prominent Chilean media outlets, including La Segunda, La Tercera, and Paula magazine, and she served as the first female editor of The Clinic magazine. Moletto Rodriguez's visit to Ukraine in the summer of 2023 facilitated by the Public Interest Journalism Lab garnered significant attention in Chile, contributing to the dissemination of insights on international affairs to her large and engaged audience.

WPFD 2024 Global Conference

Chile, 4 May 2024, 18:00-19:00

Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral, Room 1 (SALA 1A)

Language of the session:

English, Spanish