A correspondent for the independent Russian newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, was beaten and briefly detained in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, reports the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Pavel Kanygin, a special correspondent for the Moscow-based paper, said he was held for five hours and interrogated by members of the separatist group who refer to the region as the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR).

After his release, Kanygin said he was held at gunpoint and asked whether he was one of them or a “ukropy” (the derogatory term for Ukrainians used by the separatists). “When I told him I am for peace, he hit me in the eye with his fist”, said Kanygin.

Novaya Gazeta’s deputy editor, Sergey Sokolov, told the CPJ that Kanygin had gone to the DNR press office in Donetsk to apply for reporting accreditation.



He was searched and a Ukrainian journalist’s business card was found in his possession. The separatists called him a criminal and accused him of working for Ukrainian media.



The reporter, who has written widely on the conflict in eastern Ukraine, was then forced to undergo a blood test, which the separatists said was positive for drugs. Novaya Gazeta’s editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, said the drug allegations against Kanygin were fabricated.

Kanygin was later driven to a checkpoint on Ukraine’s border with Russia and released.



CPJ’s Europe and central Asia programme coordinator, Nina Ognianova, condemned the DNR’s action. She said: “Obstructing a journalist, attacking him, and throwing him out of the territory only reinforces the notion that the Donetsk People’s Republic has something to hide”.

Novaya Gazeta is part-owned by Alexander Lebedev, owner of the Independent titles. But in March this year, he said he would stop bankrolling the paper, which is regarded as hostile to the president, Vladimir Putin.

Source: CPJ