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Borys Kosarev: Modernist Kharkiv, 1915-1931 at The Ukrainian Museum thru May 2, 2012
Posted by Wasyl Gorbachuk on April 12, 2000 at 22:00:03:
It seems that somebody wants to increase its worlwide rating # 6 as Enemy of Journalists.
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - The American publisher of an English-language newspaper in Ukraine was barred from entering the country for one year, the border guards' command said Wednesday.
A spokesman for the border guards said Jed Sunden was barred following ``a decision from one of the competent organs.'' In Ukraine, the phrase usually refers to security services.
Ukraine's State Security Service declined comment on the case and the Foreign Ministry said it had nothing to do with the decision to bar Sunden, who founded the Kyiv Post weekly in 1995.
The refusal comes two days ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's planned visit to Kiev.
Sunden, speaking in a telephone interview from Kiev's Boryspil Airport, said he arrived Tuesday afternoon and was told he could not enter the country.
``This action on the eve of the visit of Madeleine Albright could be seen as part of a larger crackdown on free press and economic reform,'' Sunden said.
Sunden said he had heard unofficially that Ukrainian authorities had placed him on a blacklist on March 31, two days after he left the country for a visit home.
A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Kiev, said the embassy had expressed concern to senior Ukrainian government officials and asked for immediate explanations.
Centrist and leftist opposition media in Ukraine have long accused President Leonid Kuchma's government of trying to suppress them. The government says many media outlets make persecution charges in order to cover their own professional and financial mistakes.
The Kyiv Post doesn't have a history of clashes with the government, and is not affiliated with the political and financial groups that control many media outlets in Ukraine.