Belsat TV director wins Ukraine's Igor Lubchenko prize for defending freedom of speech

Agnieszka Romaszewska-Guzy, Belsat TV Director and a member of the EFJ Steering Committee, has been awarded the Igor Lubchenko prize for defending freedom of speech.

The award was set up by the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine. Her nomination was unanimously supported by the contest committee.

It is the fourth time that the prize has been given. The name of the winner is announced on November 3, on the birth day of Igor Lubchenko who had been Chairman of the Union for many years.

“Agnieszka Romaszewska-Guzy always defends the rights of Ukrainian journalists in Europe. She deserves this award,” Oleksandr Brizh, Chairman of Donetsk region department of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, said.

Oleksiy Kovalchuk, Head of the Union’s department in Dnipropetrovsk, called our channel’s director ‘Ukrainian journalism’s advocate’.

The Polish Association of Journalists was the first to respond to the events that took place in Ukraine in 2013-2014, i.e. protests on Kyiv’s Maidan and numerous cases of violence against journalists, the Union’s first secretary Sergei Tomilenko stressed.

“Colleagues from Poland began to raise funds to help Ukrainian pressmen. It was Agnieszka [Romaszewska-Guzy] who repeatedly came to Ukraine to support us. Due to the initiative of the Polish colleagues a joint center of assistance to journalists started to work. It provided financial aid to dozens of  who were injured on Maidan, during the events in Crimea and in the east,” he added.

belsat.eu, via ukrinform.ua