SBU detained and released Radio Svoboda journalists, force applied against them and camera broken
A journalist and an operator of Skhemy project by Radio Svoboda have been detained by the Security Service while performing their journalist duties.
Natalia Sedletska, a Radio Svoboda journalist, says it on her Facebook.
“Skhemy journalist Mykhailo Tkach and cameraman Kyryl Lazarevych have just been detained by the Security Service while performing their journalist duties – they have been taken to the SBU department on Askoldiv Lane. From what we know, law enforcers applied force and broke the camera. They are still there,” the journalist wrote.
In his turn, Mykhailo Tkach, who suffered the assault, writes: “We have just been attacked by the SBU outside the building on 3 Askoldiv Lane. We were staying there with press service representatives, holding our IDs. They broke the camera and caught us. They said we were spies and demanded to admit it.”
Dmytro Hnap, a colleague of Tkach, shortly reported that the journalists had been released. He says: “We were shooting the building in the presence of an SBU press-service representative(!). Two strangers in suits approached. We introduced ourselves and showed our IDs. But they tied us up, took away the camera. They urged us to admit espionage. They have not returned the camera yet. Our colleagues are waiting for lawyers and police outside the SBU building. And we, in our turn, require apologies from SBU leadership for such actions by their employees.”
