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Mayor bans newspaper's reporters from municipal council meetings

(IMI/IFEX) - On 5 October 2009, the mayor of Truskavets (in Lviv region) banned journalists of the weekly "Dzherela Truskavtsya" (DT) from municipal council meetings. The paper is a regional outlet with a circulation of 2,000 copies. Municipal council members said the measure was due to "improper coverage" of Mayor Lev Hrytsak's activities by the editor in chief of DT weekly, Tetyana Tatomyr.

When one of the paper's journalists went to city hall to cover the regular municipal meeting he was told by a employee, "They asked me to inform you that they did not invite you here (. . .) " The journalist asked the employee to explain the reason for the decision and was told the mayor had signed a resolution "on regulating the attendence of functionaries and the press at daily meetings run by the mayor." Based on this document, the employee confirmed that the journalist was not mentioned as a person who was authorized to attend meetings in the mayor's office. He added that lately the weekly had been covering the activities of the mayor in a manner which "failed to comply with the mayor's wishes."

It is the first time in the paper's 10-year history that one of its journalists was not authorized to cover meetings of the municipal council.