The Union of Orthodox Journalists has appealed to international organizations due to persecution by the Security Service of Ukraine.

Currently, six individuals are in custody: Protoiereus Sergiy Chertilin, Andriy Ovcharenko, Valeriy Stupnitsky, Ivan Rosada, Tatyana Bezmalenko and Vladimir Bobechko. The Union of Orthodox Journalists considers the criminal case to be fabricated and an “attack on freedom of speech.” They are asking international organizations to intervene. Previously, the Ukrainian authorities exerted pressure and persecuted the Orthodox Church itself.

“The criminal charges against our journalists are based solely on the content of publicly available publications of the Union of Orthodox Journalists, the publication ‘First Cossack,’ and the activities of the Public Association ‘Laity’ to protect the rights of the UOC faithful. That is, we are being judged for published facts of crimes against the UOC, their analysis, and evaluative judgments on this matter. We consider this completely unlawful and unacceptable for any free country, especially one striving for the European Union. If Ukraine opposes authoritarianism on the battlefield in conflict with Russia, we, the citizens of Ukraine, and the entire civilized world, have no right to allow our country to turn into autocracy, into a territory of arbitrariness, where key human and civil rights and freedoms are trampled upon,” stated the Union of Orthodox Journalists.

They also called on a number of international organizations and human rights defenders to pay attention to the problem of persecution of rights and repression against them and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church began 10 years ago, but for the past 2 years, the authorities have been ignoring forcible seizures of churches and constantly accusing priests of espionage without providing any evidence.