Ukraine Sanctions Targeting Journalists Another Indicator of "Democracy"

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree on Wednesday sanctioning 90 entities and barring over 400 people, including several high-ranking individuals and journalists, from entering Ukraine for one year. Four journalists from the Vesti.lv news portal and Vesti Segodnya newspaper were included in the blacklist.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Imposing sanctions against journalists by barring them from entering Ukraine represents a freedom of speech violation and is unacceptable for a democratic state, the chief editor of the Latvian Vesti publishing house told Sputnik on Thursday.

“Freedom of speech has not been canceled so far, and Ukraine declares itself a democratic state. Therefore, to impose sanctions against journalists, working in our newspaper, or in the BBC, or elsewhere, is at least strange. We just cover the events,” Sergei Storchevoi said.

“Probably, Ukraine perceived that this coverage shows its authorities in a negative way. But journalists have written about what they saw with their own eyes, what they have witnessed by themselves performing their journalist duty," Storchevoi stressed.

He pointed out that the newspaper is trying to contact the Ukrainian Embassy in Latvia, but the Embassy has not responded.

“It is another indicator of 'democracy,'” the chief editor said.

Over 40 journalists and bloggers from countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Poland, Israel, Latvia and Russia, were targeted by the restrictions.

Earlier in the day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov condemned the inclusion of journalists in Kiev’s new sanctions list.