Journalist Vitaliy Golub says he was beaten

Journalist Vitaliy Golub wrote about the attack in the online newspaper “Vsya Zakarpatskaya Pravda” (“The whole Transcarpathian truth”), adding his statement to the police.

He told uzhgorod.in that today, on July 31, in the morning, at about 8.45 a.m. he was carrying out a journalistic investigation about possible corruption – he was taking photos of Petofi Square near the house number 14, where the office of the Regional Executive Service is located. However, the journalist was prevented from doing his job by the people, who, according to his sources, are confidants of the SES head Natalia Panova (chauffeur, bodyguard). The man hit him several times in the chest and tried to stop the shooting of photos, cursed, threatened, and Natalia Panova, said Vitaly, saw everything and did not stop the man, on the contrary she encouraged him.

After the police arrived at the scene, Vitaliy Golub wrote a statement, in which he was asking to take action to punish the man who had beaten him. The journalist didn’t ask for medical examination, but we know that he hadn’t been seriously injured.

uzhgorod.in asked Natalia Panova to comment on the morning’s incident. She reported that Vitaliy Golub had been loafing around her house the whole morning, taking pictures of something. Then, when Ms. Panova came to work, the journalist had already been on Petofi Square. He began photographing her and her car, which she used to come to work. "I asked him whether he had any questions to me and offered to go up to my office and talk", – said the head of SES. – But he just snapped, "I’ll do what I want!" I went up to my office and called the police. I was told that they had already received a call from Mr. Golub, and asked again whether they indeed needed to come, I said yes. So I wrote a statement to the police saying that I had been watched, a young man was following me. The law prohibits interference in the privacy of any person, and I will not allow such behavior towards me".

We remind, recently, the head of SES in our region Natalia Panova has found herself in the epicenter of the scandal concerning the debts of the city government, because of which the city property has been arrested. According to officials, this does not give them the opportunity to ensure normal functioning of Uzhgorod.

Yesterday, on July 30, the correctness of the Executive Service’s actions was confirmed by the decision of the court.