Branded a ‘Terrorist’ for Reporting Two Sides of Ukraine’s War (NYT)

[newthinking]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/06/world/europe/reporter-branded-terrorist-ukraine.html


Pro-Russian rebels in Horlivka, in eastern Ukraine, launched missiles at Ukrainian troops on February 2015.
Credit Andrey Borodulin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

I have had guns pointed at me, slept in a shipping container and walked past the corpses of shelling victims since the separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine began two years ago. But I had never been blacklisted as a terrorist before.

So when my name recently appeared on a “terrorist” list of journalists published by a website with close ties to the Ukrainian government, I viewed it with a mix of trepidation and sarcasm.

Trepidation because it suggested powerful people in Ukraine, a democracy that aspires to the free flow of information, were going after me and others on the list for simply doing our jobs: reporting both sides of the war, including the pro-Russian rebel side.

And sarcasm because, this being Ukraine, the list was not likely to have much credibility elsewhere. I have not, for example, had any trouble flying after appearing on what may be the world’s first list of terrorist journalists.

It is also not a secret that I and other reporters have reported from rebel territory; our publications and broadcast outlets regularly use our names and note where we are.

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/06/world/europe/reporter-branded-terrorist-ukraine.html?_r=0