Reporters Without Borders condemns attack on newspaper offices

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the ransacking the Ukrainian newspaper Moloda Galychyna's offices on 3 October and said it was "'extremely concerned" about the violence involved. It called on the authorities to investigate and keep it informed about the results. Half a dozen thugs broke into the premises of the paper, which is close to the ruling Ukraine Social Democratic Party, in the western city of Lviv and smashed all its computers with an axe. They then scattered a substance around the offices that later made two people ill and they had to be taken to hospital, according to a staff member quoted by the Agence France presse. The Ukrainian Institute of Mass Information (IMI) press freedom organisation said the attackers tried unsuccessfully to set fire to the offices before fleeing. Lviv police launched an enquiry into the episode.