Madam Chairperson, 

The Delegation of Ukraine aligns itself with the statement of the European Union on the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists and wishes to make some remarks in its national capacity.

We remain deeply concerned over the ongoing systematic violations of the freedom of expression, as well as rights and freedoms of media representatives in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

Russian occupation administration continues persecutions and repressions against free journalism. Civic journalists and other media actors are persecuted and imprisoned for their civic stance and journalistic work.

As we have already informed the Permanent Council in May, among the illegally detained journalists are Vladyslav Yesypenko, Nariman Dzhelyalov, Server Mustafayev, Timur Ibragimov, Marlen Asanov, Seyran Saliyev, Remzi Bekirov, Ruslan Suleimayev, Osman Arifmetetov, Rustem Sheikhaliev, Amet Suleimanov, Riza Izetov, Emir-Usein.

In order to draw additional attention to the persecution of journalists and violations of the freedom of expression by the Russian occupation administration in Crimea, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has launched an initiative of advocacy by foreign public figures for civic journalists illegally detained by Russia.

The initiative envisages that each of the illegally detained civic journalists receives strong public support from an individual mentor from among influential foreign politicians and government officials, human rights defenders etc. Professor Francis Fukuyama (USA), Italian human rights activist Antonio Stango, Polish European Parliamentarian Anna Fotyga, Deputy Marshal of the Polish Sejm Malgorzata Gosiewska and former US Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor have already joined the initiative.

We take this opportunity to encourage the participating States to support this initiative aiming at facilitating the release of all illegally detained civic journalists and media workers in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

We also count on greater involvement of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media on this matter of critical importance.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson.