Last month the Globe and Mail reported that Anton Skyba, their photojournalist in Ukraine, applied to the Ukrainian government to have his press credentials renewed - and was denied. Ukrainian security services accused him of holding a Russian passport, demanded that he take a lie-detector test, and questioned whether his work as a journalist was aligned with Ukraine’s “national interests.”

It was not an isolated incident. 

Last year, Ukrainian Security - the SBU - sent a list of names to their friends in the FBI. The SBU explained that it was a list of people who they suspected of spreading “fear and disinformation” about Ukraine through their Twitter accounts.  They asked the FBI to get Twitter to remove these peoples’ accounts - to censor them. One of the names on that list was Aaron Mate, a Canadian journalist who works for the website GrayZone.

Skyba and Mate talk to Canadaland about the state of press freedom in war-torn Ukraine.

Host: Jesse Brown

Credits: Sarah Lawrynuik (Reporter), Bruce Thorson (Senior Producer), Tristan Capacchione (Audio Editor and Technical Producer), Annette Ejiofor (Managing Editor), Karyn Pugliese (Editor in Chief)

Further reading:

• Ukraine fails to renew media credentials for photographer working for The Globe - The Globe and Mail
• IPI Tracker: media freedom alerts linked to Russia-Ukraine war - International Press Institute

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