Employees of Uzhgorod bus station once again were obstructing journalist activity

In Uzhgorod, employees of the bus station verbally forbade reporters to film at the bus platforms saying that the station was a private property, so they needed permission of the management for video or photoshoot.

As a representative of the IMI in Transcarpathian region found out, journalists of the online publication "Zaholovok" Yaryna Denysyuk and TV channel "Tisa-1" Diana Fusko came to the main bus station of Uzhgorod on June 16 to cover the inspection of the station by workers of the State Transport Inspectorate.

At that time, employees of the "Zakarpatavtotrans" JSC verbally the forbade reporters to shoot saying that the station was a private property. Later, the Director of the "Zakarpatavtotrans" JSC Yosyp Krechko, who had arrived at the station, said that they had had to agree the shooting with him beforehand.

The journalists called the police. Law enforcement officers said that the journalists had the right to conduct photo and video recording. After that, the incident was over, the journalists continued to work.

It is not the first incident occurring with Transcarpathian journalists while shooting at the bus station. Thus, on February 23, 2015, the security was obstructing the work of the crew of the "21 channel". On March 13, in the same year, a similar incident of obstructing journalistic activity occurred with a correspondent of the "M-Studio" channel, and on March 19, a guard tried to prevent filming by a crew of the "Inter" TV channel at the bus station in the city of Mukachevo.

Source: Institute of Mass Information