Local newspaper editor badly beaten

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the violent beating of Ihor Mosiyshuck, the editor of the privately-owned local daily Veshirniy Vasylkiv, by unidentified youths on a street in his home town of Vasylkiv on 14 August. The youths did not take the thousand dollars he had in his wallet. The police said they would investigate, calling it a case of “hooliganism.” “We urge the Ukrainian authorities to bring all the facts of this case to the light of day and not to rule out the possibility that the attack was linked to the victim's work as a journalist,” Reporters Without Borders said. Mosiyshuck has left the hospital where he was taken after the attack but is still suffering from cranial traumatism and has many bruises on his body. He told Reporters Without Borders he was convinced it was linked to his work. Both he and his wife had recently received many threatening phone calls, he said. Mosiyshuck published a series of articles claiming that members of the town council made a lot of money from the privatisation of municipal land. He also ran an investigative report on the desire of certain officials to reopen a controversial fuel storage depot that was closed a year ago because it emitted toxic gases.