Myroslava Gongadze

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message.
This article has been tagged since January 2006.

Myroslava Gongadze (Ukrainian: Мирослава Ґонґадзе) is a Ukrainian journalist. Her husband Georgiy Gongadze was abducted and murdered in 2000.

Contents

[edit] Biography

The death of Gongadze had a huge effect on modern history of the country. Myroslava Gongadze(Honhadze)holds a strong and active public position regarding the political and cultural circumstances in Ukraine which led to Georgiy's death.

The case of reporter Georgiy Gongadze’s murder became the most groundbreaking crime in Ukraine over the last decade. The investigation led to a serious political crisis. It exposed some of the most significant social-political problems: limited freedom of speech, little regard for human rights, flaws in the court system, dependent and non-transparent law enforcement; imperfect legislation. As a result, multiple crimes against reporters and politicians remain unsolved.

After gaining international prominence after the loss of her husband, Gongadze resolved to focus all her efforts on a media campaign demanding an open and lawful investigation of the crime. Armed with a Master’s degree in civic law from Ivan Franko National University in Lviv, she has given more than 300 interviews to both Ukrainian and international media, and organized more than 15 press conferences in defense of democratic values, freedom of speech and the rights of journalists in Ukraine. In addition to her legal training, Gongadze has extensive experience in journalism and public relations. She has worked as a public relations officer in Ukraine for several organizations, including an opposition political party, “Reforms and Order,” and a media organization, Internews. She also served in 1994 as a media and campaign consultant to members of “New Wave,” a center-right political alliance, which resulted in victories for party representatives in the Verkhovna Rada, Lviv oblast and city councils, as well as the Lviv mayoral office. In 1995, she served as the executive director of the award-winning documentary Dream Defenders, which was broadcast on television stations throughout Ukraine. In 1998 she headed the public affairs office of the all-Ukrainian daily Day.

She and her two children received political asylum in the United States in 2001 where she continues to actively campaign to bring her husband's killers to justice as well as lobbying for democratic reform in her homeland. Current work in the US includes full-time TV and radio correspondent VOA, freelance correspondent Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, visiting Scholar at Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University (Washington D.C).

On 16 September 2002 she lodged a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights citing Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights and maintaining that the death of her husband was the result of a forced disappearance and that the Ukrainian authorities failed to protect his life. She also maintains that the atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, as well as the incomplete and contradictory information provided during the investigation, forced her to leave the country and caused her suffering, contrary to Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment) of the Convention. On 31 March 2005, the court declared her complaint admissible and thereby agreed to pursue her case against the State of Ukraine.

In 2001 Myroslava Gongadze established Gongadze Foundation. At that point its primary goal was to seek a logical conclusion to the investigation of kidnapping and murder of the Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Gongadze; to create a legal precedent that would prevent further crimes against Ukrainian reporters and political activists.

The Gongadze Foundation started its international activities at the Parliamentary Assembly of Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Parliamentay Assembly of the Council of Europe in July - September 2001.

In September 2001, as a result of the efforts of the founder and leader of the Gongadze Foundation, Myroslava Gongadze, and representatives of international organization “Reporters without Borders,” together with the President of the Institute of Mass Information, Alla Lazareva, the European Parliament has passed a special resolution setting up an international investigative committee into the Gongadze case. This initiative was supported by OSCE’s freedom of speech representative, Freimund Duve, during OSCE’s Warsaw session in September 2001. American OSCE delegation also supported the establishment of the investigative committee.

Between the sessions of European Parliament’s assembly, “Reporters without Borders,” and namely its European division’s director, Jan Christof Menet, Media Institute’s President, Alla Lazareva, and Myroslava Gongadze led active negotiations with representatives of the Committee of Ministers at the Council of Europe. The need of foreign investigators’ involvement into Georgiy Gongadze’s murder case was discussed during the meeting.

In March 2002 the founder of the Gongadze Foundation, Myroslava Gongadze, negotiated with French and British Ministries of Foreign Affairs the possibility of establishing an international investigative committee into the Gongadze case. Also in March, the Paris office of “Reporters without Borders” held a roundtable discussion aimed at supporting an effective investigation of the murder case of Georgiy Gongadze. European journalists’ organizations who participated in this discussion included the International Federation of Journalists (Brussels), National Society of British Journalists (London) and “Reporters without Borders”. This roundtable resulted in an address from four European journalists’ organizations to the head of each EU member-country. They were urged to assist in setting up an international investigative committee and to offer help of their country’s investigators.

In June 2002, a representative of the Foundation attended the session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and met with the Secretary General of the PACE. Myroslava Gongadze spoke at the Media Committee of the PACE, focusing on the violations of the journalists’ rights and freedom of speech in Ukraine.

[edit] The Gongadze Foundation

The Gongadze Foundation together with the Ukrainian Gold Cross raised funds to provide financial aid for the family of Ukrainian reporter Ihor Aleksandrov, murdered in July 2002.

The Gongadze Foundation is a non-governmental organization, working: To protect journalists’ rights, political and intellectual freedoms; To provide legal assistance; To develop continuing education programs for journalists; To help the families of reporters who have unjustly suffered while performing their professional duties.

[edit] European Court & murder-trial

om 08-11-2005 the European Court of Human Rights passes its judgement in case Myroslava Gongadze vs Ukraine in favor of late journalist's widow Under the Court's ruling, Ukraine has violated articles 2, 3, 13 and 41 of the European Convention on Human Rights on the Ukrainian power's failure to protect the right to life of the applicant's husband, Georgiy Gongadze.

According to the judgement, the investigation was not adequate and caused many moral traumas to the applicant. The court awarded the applicant 100,000 euros in respect of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages (source: [1]).

Right now the Gongadze murder-trial is taken place in Kiev, three former policemen are charged with the killing of Georgiy Gongadze. Another suspect, ex-police officer, Oleksiy Pukach is believed to have fled abroad and therefore charged but not on trail. No-one has been charged for ordering the murder. The trail started on 9 January 2006 (a Monday). On the day the trail started Myroslava Gongadze commented on the fact that no-one has been charged for the killing: "They are known and they should be punished just the same as those who will be sitting in the dock today".

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../m/y/r/Myroslava_Gongadze_8e2f.html"