Ukraine bans dozens of foreign journalists as 'threats to national security

Kiev criticised for blacklisting journalists including senior BBC correspondents and Spanish reporters missing in Syria alongside Russian officials and separatist leaders

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko

Ukraine’s government has come under fire after banning dozens of foreign reporters from the country over unspecified “security threats”, in a move condemned by reporter’s groups and media organisations.

Forty-one journalists and bloggers, including three members of the BBC’s Moscow bureau and two Spanish reporters believed to have been kidnapped by Isil, were listed as threats to national security in a decree released on Wednesday evening.

Steve Rosenburg has appeared on the list

The decree, signed by Petro Poroshenko, the president, lists 388 individuals cited as “actual or potential security threats,” and subjects them to sanctions ranging from entry bans to freezing of their financial assets.

The targets include Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of Chechnya, and other Russian officials believed to have taken part in or supported the annexation of Crimea and subsequent war in eastern Ukraine. Also blacklisted are several European politicians who agreed to act as observers in referendums and elections held in occupied Crimea and separatist-controlled parts of eastern Ukraine.

Banned journalists include BBC Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenburg, producer Emma Wells, and cameraman Anton Chicherov.

Also on the blacklist are Antonio Pampliega and Angel Sastre, two Spanish reporters who disappeared in Syria in July and are believed to have been kidnapped by the terror group Isil, and two reporters for Russian agencies based in South Africa and Turkey and with no apparent links to Ukraine.

All three of the BBC journalists have reported extensively from Ukraine since the outbreak of the crisis there in early 2014.

Andrew Roy, the BBC’s foreign editor, condemned the move as “a shameful attack on media freedom”.

“These sanctions are completely inappropriate and inexplicable measures to take against BBC journalists who are reporting the situation in Ukraine impartially and objectively, and we call on the Ukrainian government to remove their names from this list immediately,” he said in a statement.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based NGO that works to defend reporters working in hostile environments around the globe, called for reporters to be removed from the black list.

“This sweeping decree undermines Ukraine's interests by blocking vital news and information that informs the global public about the country's political crisis,” said Nina Ognianova, the group’s Coordinator for Europe and Central Asia.

The Ukrainian Security Service, the KGB successor agency that apparently drew up the list, said “the decision to ban journalists was made after a thorough examination of evidence,” but offered no comments on individual cases.

Yarema Dukh, a spokesman for Mr Poroshenko’s administration, said the Ukrainian Security Service would issue a statement on Wednesday morning.

By Roland Oliphant