RT’s
Paula Slier leaves Ukraine following call for her arrest, death
threats
5
May, 2015
RT
correspondent Paula Slier, who covered the fire near the Chernobyl
nuclear station, has left Ukraine after a local journalist urged
security services to detain her. Some commentators were calling for
the RT reporter’s death.
The
public call to arrest Slier was posted on Facebook by Denis Kazansky,
a blogger and journalist for Ukrainsky Tizhden (Ukrainian Week)
magazine.
“The
worker of the Kremlin propaganda channel Russia Today [RT] Paula
Slier, who laughingly reported on self-defense forces burning
Ukrainian soldiers alive with ‘Grad’ missiles, moves freely about
the country,” he
wrote.
“Sirs
from Ukraine’s Security Council, it’s your mistake. Maybe even
Graham Philips could arrive? Those rascals shouldn’t be in our
country,” Kazansky dded.
The
Facebook allegations triggered a flood of angry comments, with some
users calling for the murder of the RT correspondent.
Paula Slier
Thank you to everyone who alerted me about the threats - after being made aware of them I left Kiev and am now out of Ukraine
A
number of Ukrainian media outlets also reported on the Facebook
entry.
Another
Ukrainian journalist, Anatoly Shary, posted a YouTube video accusing
Kazansky of lies and fact-spinning, attempting to prove that the
accusations against Slier are a sham initiated by Ukrainian
journalists.
It
is not the first time Slier has faced online death threats. She
received them in September 2014, when she was reporting from the
frontline in eastern Ukraine. It was then that she was accused of
“smiling,”
while reporting next to the Donbass rebels firing Grad missiles at
the alleged positions of the Kiev troops.
But
as you can see from the video, Paula is actually wincing from the
loud noise of rockets being launched close by.
Having
worked in war zones before, Paula is no stranger to life-threatening
situations, but she says with a targeted campaign like this it is
different: "I
am used to working in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq but it's a
different kind of fear - you risk for example being in the wrong
place at the wrong time and facing kidnappings, bombings and the
like; but here it’s being afraid that someone will recognize you
amid a conscious effort to catch and hurt you."
In
the face of the multiple threats, RT head Margarita Simonyan is
calling on the Ukrainian government to provide safety for media
workers:
“The
threats made against Paula have once again demonstrated that Ukraine
does not have proper working conditions for journalists, even when
they cover important stories such as the Chernobyl fire, and other
issues entirely unrelated to politics. We are extremely alarmed by
the fact that reporters have to fear for their lives, and we call
upon the government of Ukraine to ensure a safe environment for the
press.”
The
Russian Investigative Committee has started a criminal probe against
Ukrainian political scientist Yury Romanenko, who advocated the
killing of Russian journalists at his Harvard lecture about a month
ago, and later posted the speech on Facebook.
Paula
Slier has worked for RT since the channel was founded in 2005, and is
a military correspondent who’s covered numerous conflicts: in
Syria, Libya, Egypt, Palestine, Israel and Ukraine.
In
2013, Slier was declared one of the most influential South Africans
in the world.
Ukrainian
political analyst: Snipers must kill journalists from Russia
6
April, 2015
Yuri
Romanenko expressed his aggressive thoughts during a discussion at
Harvard, but his US partners did not support him
Fairly
well-known Ukrainian journalist and political analyst Yuri Romanenko,
head of the “Stratagem” Center for Political Analysis suggested
to the Armed Forces of Ukraine to enhance the country’s defenses by
killing Russian journalists, Russian
LifeNews tv reported.
The Ukrainian expert offers UAF snipers to be ordered to suppress
coverage of the situation in the Donbass by people in helmets marked
PRESS.
Yuri
Romanenko. Definitely not a cosmonaut.
Romanenko posted
on his Facebook page an
account of how he and his teammates traveled to the United States and
met with American experts and human rights activists. Americans
probably did not object to the discussion on the topic of “Russian
aggression”, but, as Romanenko writes, were shocked by his radical
proposal to combat Russian media by creative sniping, something
allegedly implemented in Kiev a year ago.
“I
know how to solve the problem of waning attention and bring the media
to the next level. UAF must selectively and carefully destroy Russian
journalists covering the situation in Donbass. You need to direct the
UAF snipers to shoot people wearing helmets inscribed with “Press”
as priority targets. Since the media represent a destructive weapon
and allow Russia to operate not only in the war zone, but also on the
territory of Ukraine, taking out several dozen journalists in the
conflict zone will help reduce the quality of the picture in the
Russian media, and, therefore, reduce the effectiveness of their
propaganda, Yuri Romanenko wrote.
The
political scientist admits that the murder of journalists is “bad
PR” for Ukraine, but it does not matter, because this would
“relatively easily bring the topic to the top of American news,”
Romanenko bluntly told the American experts about this.
“All
the same, this is PR, and all we need is not fall out of the focus of
your media in the context of your presidential election campaign,”
he quotes his words at a meeting at Harvard.
His US interlocutors said that murder of journalists violates international law and the world community will not allow the Ukrainian radicals to commit such crimes. At this point, according to Yuri Romanenko, the Ukrainian delegation “grinned happily,” and “one man from the Diaspora” said in his ear: “Don’t listen to this, you are completely right, this is exactly how we should be saving the Ukraine.”
A
criminal case has been opened against Ukrainian political scientist
Yuriy Romanenko who allegedly called for killing Russian journalists,
RIA Novosti reports Tuesday citing official spokesman of Russia's
Investigative Committee, Vladimir Markin.
According
to Markin, at a conference at Harvard (Cambridge, Massachusets) in
early April, Romanenko publicly claimed that “the armed forces of
Ukraine must selectively and thoroughly destroy Russian journalists
who cover the situation in southeastern Ukraine.”
Later,
on April 5, Romanenko posted the speech on his Facebook page under
the title “How we discussed Ukraine at Harvard.” His speech was
also published in the media.
Investigators
say that the statement contains violent elements such as calls to
Ukrainian troops to kill the Russian journalists working there.
Romanenko’s
statements also incite hatred toward Russian journalists as a social
group, according to Markin
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