On March 22, the Workshop “State Media Policy: Freedom of Expression and Protection of Journalists’ Rights through the Lens of Martial Law Challenges.” was held, organized within the Jean Monnet Chair EU Standards on Freedom of Expression and Information (101127062 EUMediaFree) with the support of the European Education and Culture Executive Agency.
The purpose of the event is to promote public dialogue in the discussion of the role of the media as guardians of democracy, the realization of the right to freedom of expression, and the conditions for the functioning of the media sector during the legal regime of martial law.
The speakers of the Workshop were: Natalia ESINA, a human rights activist at the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union; Volodymyr SADIVNYCHYI, the Head of the Sumy Regional Organization of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine; Alyona YATSYNA, regional representative of the Institute of Mass Information in Sumy Region.
Project coordinator Vladyslava ZAVHORODNYA moderated the Workshop.
The event was held in a mixed format, so not only residents of the city of Sumy, but also students, academics, civic activists, and scientists from Kyiv, Lviv, Mykolaiv, and Poltava Regions became guests of the Workshop online.
During the event, the participants raised a number of other important issues, in particular, they discussed the new law “On Media” and its role in promoting Ukraine on the way to the EU, touched on the role of journalists in conditions of full-scale war, restrictions on journalistic activity under martial law, cases of persecution media workers and expressed their opinions on whether international humanitarian law fulfills the function of protecting the rights of journalists.
The event was covered by the Press Center of Sumy State University and the STS TV Channel, the video plot of which can also be viewed on YouTube.
