Yekaterina Sergatskova, a Ukrainian journalist and editor of the Zaborona newspaper, was forced to leave Kiev after she received threats from nationalists because of the material about the links between the ultra-right and Ukrainian partners of the social network Facebook.

Writes about this edition «The Independent».

So, on July 3, Zaborone published material co-authored by Sergatskova. It described the connection between neo-Nazi groups and the Ukrainian organization Stopfake, which operates as a fact-checking partner on Facebook. The article describes in detail several cases when one of the public figures of a non-governmental organization appeared next to ultra-right musicians denying the Holocaust (we should note that Strana was the first to raise this topic, devoting a whole series of publications to links between Stopfake and the ultra-right).

Facebook also deleted an earlier Zaborona article about the far-right activist Denis Nikitin. StopFake responded to the accusations by stating that the organization never blocked the materials and that such accusations were a pro-Russian conspiracy.

The new article sparked a strong reaction on social media and among government officials. On Saturday, nationalist journalist Roman Skripin posted a photo of Sergatskova’s five-year-old son and her alleged place of residence. He also accused the journalist of being an agent of the Kremlin. After that, Facebook users began to publish information about Sergatskova’s address, as well as threaten to kill her.

After numerous complaints, the original Facebook post and comments from far-right activists were deleted. But additional aggressive posts by the same journalist remain untouched. «You are blocking one post,» Skrypin wrote, «and I will write another 10.»

On Monday evening, Sergatskova had to leave the Ukrainian capital with her family out of fears for her life.

Sergatskova told the publication that she reported the threats to the police, but did not expect real protection.

As the newspaper «The Independent» notes, earlier the persecution of journalists by right-wing radicals led to murders.

The publication recalled that in 2015, journalist and writer Oles Buzina was killed a day after the leak of his address on the Myrotvorets website. A year later, journalist Pavel Sheremet was killed in his car in the center of Kiev. The official investigation so far has not led to the emergence of convincing suspects, although another investigation by his colleagues suggested that the Ukrainian Security Service may have known something about it.

“We do not feel safe, and the officials are silent. How can you feel safe knowing how strongly the right-wing radicals are connected with the police and security services? » — said Sergatskova.

Source: Strana