International School of Journalists’ Safety

14-15 September. Representatives of 10 countries arrived in a small town of Yaremche of Ivano-Frankivsk oblast (Ukraine) to attend an International Conference for the Project partners and donors to promote School of Journalists’ Safety. In Memory of Georhiy Gongadze and Anna Politkovskaya. The Project initiators – Myroslava Gongadze (Ukraine), Oleg Panfilov (Russia), Yevhen Hlibovytsky (Ukraine) – discussed the Project concept with the conferees who arrived from Azerbiajan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tadjikistan, Ukraine.

Miklos Haraszti, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, who opened the Conference, gave support to the Project.

During the two-day debates in Yaremche, the representatives of the non-governmental media organisations from the  CIS countries were discussing various issues of  journalist safety, cases of assaults on journalists, their disappearances, murders, intimidations, legally unjustifiable persecution, unlawful perusals of  e-mail correspondences or media web sites etc.

 According to Oleg Panfilov, Director of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, it is serious shortcomings in the journalists’ professional training — specifically, their inability to apply professional skills that can ensure their safe performance, including the lack of knowledge of pertinent laws and how to use them in daily practice – that fuel most dramatic developments in journalists’ job and life.

 Myroslava Giongadze, widow of a lost Ukrainian Internet journalist and an outspoken critic of Ukraine’s  ex-President Leonid Kuchma, stated in her speech that launching of the School of Journalists’ Safety will imply an essentially new training course for International journalists and post-graduate university students at which they will learn fundamental professional principles; this will change their attitude to their profession and teach them to defend their and their colleagues’ rights; also, to take measures to secure safe professional performance.

 Adama Michnik, an outstanding Polish public man, dissident, editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, supported the Project team’s efforts on launching the School of Journalists’ Safety and sent his letter of support to the conferees in Yaremche.

 It is expected that the School of Journalists’ Safety will open its doors to the  first students from the post-Soviet countries in early 2008 in the Ukrainian Carpathians, in Yaremche of Ivano-Frankivsk oblast. The choice of the site is explained by the fact that Ukraine currently has better milieu for journalists and the mass media outlets; also, Ukrainian journalists have obtained a considerable experience in defending their rights and demonstrating solidarity while being persecuted by the powers that be. This solidarity and right protection were especially manifested in 2000, after Georhiy Gongadze’s assassination.

 Each group of students will undergo 2-3 semesters, 10-12 days each, for 1.5-2 years on the following courses: journalist’s safety in hostilities; journalist’s safety during aggressive rallies; journalist’s legal safety (when detained, arrested or facing trial); computer security; language security.

 There will be a special web site for distance learning.

 The School of Journalists’ Safety partners are: OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Vienne, Austria; Mass Media Defence Centre, Voronezh, Russia; Press Development Institute, Novosibirsk, Russia; Regional Press Institute, S-Petersburg, Russia; Guild of Linguistic Experts for Documentation and Information Disputes (GLEDID), Moscow, Russia; Independent Journalism Center of Moldova; Byelorussian Association of Journalists; IWPR Caucasus Bureau, Tbilisi, Georgia; Caucasus Media Institute, Yerevan; Istitute of Reporters’ Freedom and Safety, Baku; MediaNet, Almaty; Institute of Media Representative in Kyrgyz Republic; National Association of Free Media of Tajikistan (NANSMIT). The Project team expects that other NGOs involved in the media reforms both in the CIS and other developing countries  will also join the Project.

 The School of Journalists’ Safety is being established owing to the efforts of the Georhiy Gongadze Foundation that unites Ukrainian journalists, Georhiy’s former friends and colleagues who shared with him modern journalism values; also the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, an organization that is part of the Journalists’ Union of Russia and conducts investigations in Russia, other former Soviet republics, Mongolia, and Cuba.

 The Conference in Yaremche of 14-15 September was held due to the support of the International Renaissance Foundation, Ukraine (https://www.irf.ua/en/ )

 Contact details:

Head of the Project:

Oleg Panfilov

Tel: +7 495 233 2593

panfilov@cjes.ru

 Project Coordinator:

Liudmyla Gumeniuk

Tel: +38 066 203 69 40