Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information speaks out against interference in editorial freedom
At the latest meeting of the parliamentary Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information Deputies considered the decision by the National Expert Commission on Public Morality [the Commission] and the recommendations of the National Television and Broadcasting Council regarding certain popular programmes. After a lengthy discussion involving National Deputies, representatives of television channels, the Head of the Commission Vasyl Kostytsky, the members of the Committee on Freedom of Speech unanimously agreed a decision. This “draws the attention of the National Expert Commission and the National Television and Broadcasting Council to the fact that their decisions and recommendations addressed to television and radio broadcasting companies with lists of programmes that the Commission considers should be avoided contain the hallmarks of interference in the editorial policy of television companies which is unacceptable from the point of view of safeguarding the constitutional principle of freedom of speech and current legislation regulating legal relations in the information sphere.”