If murder won't work, try crying libel

When Gongadze went missing, his disappearance, followed by the circumstances of his death, became a national cause célèbre, prompting protests in the streets that continued for years. In Ukraine, an agrarian country of some 50 million people, most of whom do not have Internet access, the story of the beheaded Internet journalist who'd taken on the government, and perhaps been murdered for his stance, spread beyond computer screens.

For months, Prytula found herself with state-funded bodyguards. But if the state had been responsible for the death of her partner, who were they protecting her from? Paradoxically, the attention following Gongadze's death meant that Ukrayinska Pravda was untouchable, and it continued to publish as it liked.

"It's been a very well publicized case, and it seems as if that's one of the reasons why the authorities have kept their hands off this Internet site, because it would have been pretty obvious if they had stifled it," says Nina Ognianova, a research associate for Europe and Central Asia for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

"Over the past three and a half years, the authorities did not dare to undertake any serious attempts to pressure the Ukrayinska Pravda," stated a May 22, 2004, editorial on the site. Then came the libel suit, which the editors consider an indirect attack from the government. In the editorial, titled "We Shall Overcome," the editors reiterated their argument that the plaintiffs in the case against them are agents of the presidential chief of staff who were involved in covering up a presidential involvement in the Gongadze murder.

But libel isn't really the issue, Prytula argues. A contentious presidential election, scheduled for Oct. 31, is fast approaching, and the journalists at Ukrayinska Pravda are convinced the case is simply another attempt by the government to silence them. Prytula also maintains that it will be impossible for Ukrayinska Pravda to get a fair hearing in the court that will be hearing the case.

"They [the plaintiffs] want not just money from us. They also want to arrest all our bank accounts, and all our computers," Prytula says. Pointing out that the two plaintiffs in the case are supposedly journalists, she adds: "If the truth is the most important thing, why do you want to arrest all our computers and bank accounts?"

The editorial says that one of the plaintiffs, Maria Sambur, then working for another site, the Institute of Mass Information, doctored the letters of the witness in the Gongadze case who died in jail. The omitted passages allegedly accused Kuchma of involvement in the case.

The plaintiffs, Sambur and Valeriy Vorotnik, did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this article.

"It's a common technique in the former Soviet Union to try to cripple media outlets that are very critical of the government or associated with the political opposition by filing for civil damages, and by the granting of really prohibitive civil damages," says Rachel Denber, acting director of the Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. "Sometimes the damages awarded seem more aimed at crippling the outlet than at redressing a tort -- a civil wrong."

But the Committee to Protect Journalists, a group that has sharply criticized the Ukrainian government for its treatment of journalists -- it named Kuchma one of the 10 worst enemies of the press in 2001 in part because of the Gongadze murder-- cautions against assuming that the lawsuit against the site is an example of the nefarious workings of the government's tightening grip.

"So far there hasn't been anything out of the ordinary in the case," Ognianova says. "It seems like it's a case in which two private citizens are looking for civil redress," although she does say that her organization is monitoring it. "Because it's a civil claim we have to really wait and see how the courts will react and whether they will make a fair decision."

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