VIENNA, September 17. /TASS/. OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic called on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday to exclude journalists from the list of people banned from entering Ukraine.
"I call on President Poroshenko to amend his decree and exclude journalists from it [the sanctions list," Mijatovic said adding that "the authorities should facilitate the work of journalists and abstain from creating administrative obstacles to the entry."
"I fully respect governments’ legitimate right to fight terrorism and to protect their national security and their citizens," Mijatovic noted. "But introducing over-broad restrictions that curb free movement of journalists is not the way to ensure security".
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Ukraine’s sanctions against companies and officials
On Wednesday, Poroshenko approved Ukraine’s sanction list against 105 companies. Among them are Russian flag carrier Aeroflot and other air carriers Transaero, Ural Airlines, Siberia and Orenburg Airline, Gazpromavia Airline, Gazprombank, Bank of Moscow, antivirus software producer Kaspersky Laboratory and its Ukraine’s subsidiary.
The list includes the Novorossiya civil movement, the Oplot organization, the Prizrak and Somali brigades as well as a number of charity Christian foundations.
Poroshenko also approved the inclusion of 388 people in Ukraine’s sanctions list, including Alexander Brod, director of the Moscow-based human rights bureau and a member of the Council for Civil Society Development and Human Rights operating under the Russian president; Russian president’s adviser, Sergey Glazyev; Russian Children’s Rights Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov and Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Russian Federation Council Committee for International Affairs.
Russian journalists from TASS, RIA Novosti, Izvestiya and Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspapers, RUPTLY news agency, NTV television company and Channel One were included in the sanctions list.
Among sanctioned journalists are three correspondents from TASS - Andrey Shitov (Washington), Alexander Nechayev, the head of TASS bureau in South Africa; and Alexander Surzhansky, an employee of the agency’s department for European countries.
All sanctioned individuals are banned from entering Ukraine, and their assets, if any, on the territory of Ukraine are subject to being frozen.