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Ukraine"s opposition seizes TV Channel
September 24, 2002
ForUm News

Posted by HW on March 28, 2024

More than 200 people’s deputies headed by the opposition leaders, MPs Yulia Tymoshenko, Oleksandr Moroz and Petro Symonenko, seized the newsroom of the First National Channel [UT-1] on Monday evening, as a result of which the news program was not televised. On Sept. 23 at 20.45, a quarter of an hour before the news program, the deputies turned up in the studio and, standing behind the newsreader, declared their intention to make an appeal to the Ukrainian people. As a result, the news program was replaced with other programs with a running line on the screen, saying that the news was not televised because of a group of deputies seizing the studio. This lasted for more than an hour and a half.

The deputies negotiated with the company president, Ihor Storozhuk, who promised them to meet their demand, according to Interfax-Ukraine. On the whole, about 40 deputies, including 10 members of the SPU and BYT factions, were in the studio. Some deputies, for example Andriy Shkil, Hryhoriy Omelchenko, Mykhailo Volynets, Valentyna Semeniuk etc., were inside the company building, but did not enter the newsroom. They left the building at about 10.30 p.m.

Leaving the TV center, Yulia Tymoshenko said that Storozhuk promised that the opposition leaders would have an opportunity to speak in a live program on UT-1 on Tuesday night for 10 minutes “in compliance with the Law on the People’s Deputy Status” as the deputies had demanded.

Commenting on the situation, head of the State Committee on Information Policy, Ivan Chyzh, told journalists that any seizure of a TV channel “is abnormal.” At the same time, Deputy Prime Minister Volodymyr Semynozhenko said, “The events in the TV center showed us the so-called opposition, which can offer us nothing but radicalism.”

In the meantime, representatives of the ruling authorities had not enough time to negotiate with the opposition.

For his part, communist leader Petro Symonenko told Interfax-Ukraine that the UT-1 president promised “only to discuss the possibility” of giving TV air to the opposition members, but he never assured that the opposition would be given it. Asked if this seizure had been planned or extemporaneous, he said, “Everything was done in accordance with the plan.”

According to Moroz, the TV company president, Storozhuk, said that to meet the opposition’s demand, he would have to consult President Kuchma, who appointed him to this position. Moroz said Storozhuk promised to settle it by Tuesday afternoon.

Asked what measures the opposition will take if their demand is not met, Tymoshenko said, “We will do our best to prevent the society, unless it receives true information, from being told lies.”

Commenting on the situation, Oleksandr Savchenko, chief of the Interior Ministry’s militia department, said the militia did not interfere, nor it planned to interfere, with the events unwound by the deputies in the TV center.

According to the company directorate, Storozhuk plans to convene the company’s council and address the parliament with a request to settle the problem of providing the opposition with TV air.

The opposition vehemently denied seizing the TV studio, saying that they managed to reach “an informational breakthrough” on the eve of the national protest action scheduled for Sept. 24.
 
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