OSCE Media Representative urges Ukrainian authorities to step up efforts to find murderers of independent journalist

VIENNA, 16 September 2002 - Two years to the day after the disappearance and subsequent murder of the Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Freimut Duve, has urged the Ukrainian authorities to increase their efforts to find the perpetrators of the crime.

"I am very concerned about the lack of progress in the case of Mr. Gongadze", Mr. Duve said. "Any censorship by killing of a journalist should be taken very seriously by the government and dealt with expeditiously. In the case of Mr. Gongadze, however, we still know very little about what actually happened."

On the evening of 16 September 2000, Mr. Gongadze, the editor of the on-line publication Ukrainskaya Pravda, went missing in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. In November 2000, his decapitated body was discovered outside Kyiv. Until today, the perpetrators of this crime have not been brought to justice.

The OSCE Media Representative has followed the case from the start, calling on the Ukrainian authorities to conduct a thorough investigation into the disappearance and murder of Mr. Gongadze. At the same time, Mr. Duve's office conducted its own enquiry, and requested in a report on the case that "the investigation should be transparent with information provided in a timely manner to the public."