Open letter from Ukrainian members of the International Press Institute on IPI’s position about Dozhd’s license revocation

Editor’s note: we are publishing a letter from Ukrainian media leaders who are members of the International Press Institute commenting on the IPI’s statement regarding the revocation of TV channel Dozhd’s broadcasting license in Latvia. One of the signatories, Daryna Shevchenko, is a co-founder of The Fix. The Fix is open to publishing a variety of opinions on this topic; please contact us at newsroom@thefix.media if you’d like to suggest a column.

We, Ukrainian members of the International Press Institute (IPI) and laureates of Free Media Pioneer award, are writing this letter to voice our concern and disappointment over IPI’s publicly expressed support of Dozhd – Russian “liberal” media outlet, broadcasting from Latvia. Last week Dozhd’s broadcast license was revoked by Latvia’s National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEPLP) for breaking the country’s law.

A joint statement signed by IPI and other media development organizations not only calls on Latvia to renew the license of Dozhd, saying that the state’s actions have “a clear implication for media freedom”, but also identifies the outlet’s misconduct as just “a clear mistake”. This statement is demonstrating a poor understanding of the situation. 

We are upset and disappointed to see such a lack of judgment from our colleagues at IPI and other colleagues in international media development, but we do hope that this comes from a lack of context and understanding rather than a drastic split in values between International Press Institute, international media organizations and the Ukrainian media community . 

In this letter, we are providing the context lacking in the statement linked above and do hope that IPI can elaborate on their position when it comes to their stand in this war, where an attack in the information space is as much a crime and an attack as a battlefield offense.

Here are a few points we believe are important to emphasize on while assessing the situation:

1) Breaking the law of a residence country and being punished for it can hardly be defined as having a “clear implication for media freedom”, as reads the statement. Latvia provided refuge for many Russian refugees, including those politically persecuted in Russia and has offered its broadcasting capacity and protection for a few Russian media asking to follow the country’s law in return. 

Dozhd violated the law three times in four months and has been quite consistent in its “mistakes” and “missteps” for quite some time. Let us remind you that in 2017, the Ukrainian regulator, the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting, has withdrawn “Dozhd” from the list of foreign channels allowed to broadcast in Ukraine for making the same “mistake” of using the world map with Crimean Peninsula as a part of Russia. (Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014. The annexation isn’t recognized by the global community). Dozhd has been repeating the same “mistakes,” “accidentally” supporting Russian imperialistic ambitions and aggression, to the point when it appears to be not mistakes, but their normal practice.

2) Respectfully we cannot agree that the steps taken by Dozhd to remedy the situation could be called “appropriate”, as reads the statement.  Shortly after firing their presenter, who “misspoke” on air expressing hope that Dozhd has helped provide for Russian Armed Forces on the ground, company management took quite a step back on the decision. 

CEO and founder of Dozhd Nataliya Sindeyeva released a public video statement apologizing to the fired presenter and calling on him to come back to work, along with a few colleagues who left the company expressing their disagreement with the firing. Take into account that the same employee has expressed controversial opinions on Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine before (such as arguing that it would be better if Kyiv would have fallen early on and the war would be over) and remained part of the company up to date. It appears that his colleagues and the administration of Dozhd are fine with his opinions.

3) And even though we do believe that Dozhd needs to be prosecuted and the matter of their support for the Russian terrorist army has to be properly investigated, we don’t see the demand for follow-up prosecution and revoking the license as an intermediate security measure as mutually exclusive. 

Representing the media community of the country that has fought for the freedom of press for decades and managed to build it from the ground up after the Soviet Union collapsed, we are concerned to see that democratic countries’ rejection of Dozhd’s covert support of Russian aggression is being framed as a freedom of speech issue. Using the protection of freedom of speech as an excuse only diminishes the efforts of courageous journalists and editors who are under threat daily for exposing the regimes like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Belarus and many others, not supporting them.

We do hope that our point of view as well as additional context provided in this letter will be taken into account by IPI, a much respected membership organization that we are part of. For us, as IPI members, it is crucially important to understand where IPI stands in the matter, while we are risking our lives every day to let the world know of Russia’s crimes in Ukraine. And we do expect that IPI can provide us with a public explanation of its position on the matter, just as it expressed its public support for the Russian media outlet. 

Integrity of our values and shared understanding with our international colleagues is, unfortunately, the matter of life and death for us and we cannot afford to compromise on it.

Respectfully,

Olga Rudenko, Chief Editor of The Kyiv Independent (IPI member and Free Media Pioneer Award laureate);

Daryna Shevchenko, CEO of The Kyiv Independent (IPI Executive Board Member and Free Media Pioneer Award laureate);

Sevgil Musaieva, Chief Editor of Ukrainska Pravda (IPI member and Free Media Pioneer Award laureate);

Lera Lauda, Co-founder and Head of ABO Media development agency  (IPI Member and Free Media Pioneer Award laureate);

Anna Babinets, Head of Slidstvo.Info investigative agency (IPI’s Free Media Pioneer Award laureate);

Yevhenia Motorevska, Chief Editor of Hromadske (IPI’s Free Media Pioneer Award laureate).