Ukrainian authorities have blocked Mauricio Ampuero, a correspondent and presenter for RT Spanish, from entering Ukraine. Ampuero says the ban was explained by the fact that he is “a journalist of a Russian channel.”
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RT Spanish reported on Saturday that its correspondent
was denied entrance to Ukraine at the country’s border.
The Chilean-born journalist was heading for the eastern Ukrainian
city of Donetsk, where he previously covered anti-Kiev protests
in April.
Ampuero tweeted a photo of his passport with a red Ukrainian
stamp which says he has been denied entry into the country.
When asked about the reason for the refusal, a Ukrainian border
guard told Ampuero that he was being banned from entering for
“being a journalist of a Russian channel.”
Journalists working for Russian media outlets have been
consistently persecuted by the new Ukrainian authorities for
covering the bloody military campaign waged by Kiev in
southeastern Ukraine.
READ MORE: Captive Russian journalists told they’d be ‘cut to bits’ and ‘barbecued’
There have also been allegations that two Rossiya TV journalists killed in a deadly Kiev armed forces shelling in June were deliberately targeted, along with a group of refugees escorted by local militia.
Routine detentions, entrance denials, and deportations of Russian journalists have triggered an outcry from rights groups and international bodies. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said that Ukraine’s military and security services have been “dangerously interfering with press freedom,” while the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in May urged Kiev to release captured journalists from Russia’s LifeNews channel, calling the intimidation and obstruction of media working in the country “unacceptable.”
UK journalist and popular YouTuber Graham Phillips, who was
covering events in eastern Ukraine and has worked for RT as a
stringer, was also detained and questioned by Kiev security forces for
36 hours. Phillips said the Ukrainian military officers detaining
him became particularly agitated when he told them he was
reporting for a Russian channel and questioned if he was a
“spy.”
A Kiev court in March banned the broadcasting of Russian TV
channels in Ukraine – a move that the OSCE slammed as a
“repressive” act of censorship. But one ban was not enough for the Kiev
authorities – on Tuesday, Ukraine's National Telecommunications
Council filed a lawsuit demanding to halt the retransmission of
the “unadapted” channels TV Center International (TVCI),
REN-TV, LifeNews, and RT.