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                 3 BBC Journalists Barred from Entering Ukraine

   by VOA News

   Ukraine has barred a few dozen reporters, including three BBC
   journalists, from entering the country as an unspecified security
   threat.

   Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko late on Wednesday signed a
   sanctions list barring nearly 400 individuals from entering Ukraine,
   including BBC correspondent Steve Rosenberg and producer Emma Wells,
   both British, and Russian cameraman Anton Chicherov.

   This is the first sanctions list against Russia and foreign individuals
   that Kyiv has introduced since a conflict broke out in April 2014 in
   eastern Ukraine, claiming more than 8,000 lives so far.

   The decree which was published on the president's website said the
   reporters and media executives on the list presented an unspecified
   "threat to national interests, national security, sovereignty or
   territorial integrity.''

   It did not specify why the long-serving Moscow-based BBC journalists
   were singled out but a spokesman for the presidential administration
   said late Wednesday night that the Ukrainian Security Service would
   give an explanation on Thursday.

   The BBC's foreign editor, Andrew Roy, described the ban as "a shameful
   attack on media freedom.''

   "These sanctions are completely inappropriate and inexplicable measures
   to take against BBC journalists who are reporting the situation in
   Ukraine impartially and objectively, and we call on the Ukrainian
   government to remove their names from this list immediately,'' he said
   in emailed comments.

   Also on the list of the banned journalists are Antonio Pampliega and
   Angel Sastre, two Spanish reporters who disappeared in Syria in July
   and are believed to have been kidnapped by the Islamic State group, and
   two reporters for Russian news agencies in South Africa and Turkey with
   no clear links to Ukraine.

   The Russian news agency Tass on Thursday described the decision to
   blacklist three of its reporters, one based in Washington, D.C., one in
   South Africa and one in Moscow, as "odd'' since two of the three
   journalists do not even cover Ukraine.

   Poroshenko said in a statement accompanying the list that the sanctions
   were introduced against people and companies ``linked to the annexation
   of Crimea and aggression in Donbass'' in eastern Ukraine.

   Most of the people on the sanctions lists are Russian politicians and
   political activists who have called for the annexation of Crimea and
   advocated for Russia's greater involvement in eastern Ukraine.

   Ukraine has barred entry to Russian journalists in the past, accusing
   them of inciting unrest in the Russian east.

   The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement
   that it is "dismayed'' by Poroshenko's actions.

   "While the government may not like or agree with the coverage, labeling
   journalists a potential threat to national security is not an
   appropriate response,'' said the committee's Europe and Central Asia
   program coordinator, Nina Ognianova.

   Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, on
   Thursday condemned the sanctions against journalists, saying that
   blacklisting reporters undermines freedom of speech in Ukraine.

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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/three-bbc-journalists-barred-from-ent
   ering-ukraine/2967408.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/three-bbc-journalists-barred-from-entering-ukraine/2967408.html