The Hypocrites of the Day: Belsat TV director's reaction to Babchenko turning up alive

“A journalist whose life is under threat should, apparently, hire a bodyguard or hide in the village in order to remain ethical enough. Under no circumstances can he help certain state services to catch the crime instigator,” writes Agnieszka Romaszewska-Guzy.

Christophe Deloire, head of the “Reporters without Borders,” said that he considers the special operation of the SBU a manipulation and a new step in the information war. Mr Deloire stressed: “It’s sad that the Ukrainian secret service played with the truth, regardless of the reason.” The human rights organization “Committee to Protect Journalists” stated that it “is investigating this unprecedented situation,” and demanded explanations from the Ukrainian side.

The Hypocrites of the Day

The guy in the photo is the head of Reporters without Borders (RSF). What an incredibly pompous idiot! I will not spend time on discussing all the statements he made in his interview about the staged murder of the Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko… Let us focus, instead, on what the RSF leader said a journalist should do to maintain a sufficiently ethical posture while facing mortal danger. It turns out, you see, that a journalist in such a predicament should hire bodyguards or hide in the countryside, but never, ever assist any government agency in catching the person who hired the hitman. The RSF leader also claims that an ethical journalist ought not accuse Russia falsely of any murder, since no murder has taken place.

During the most heated period of the Euromaidan, and later when the war in the Donbas region was starting, I repeatedly tried to make international journalists organizations interested in the plight of Ukrainian journalists, who were attacked and later even kidnapped in Donbas. Among others, I addressed the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which is so nervous today about the case of Babchenko, as well as Reporters without Borders and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ).

Speaking with those organizations was hard labor.

Let us say it loud and clear: none of them gave a damn about the fate of those wild locals, whose actions, as it seemed to those organizations, were often inspired by suspiciously patriotic sentiments favoring the Ukrainian side. And the Ukrainian side, the organizations seemed to believe, was ALSO not without fault and likely had committed many sins of its own.

Actually, did they say “ALSO” at the time? I looked at the CPJ website: it did not say “also” — it said “MAINLY.” Because, in case you do not know, during the initial days of that war as well as now, the most persecuted journalists (persecuted for purely professional work, as is widely known) have been the journalists working for pro-Putin Russian media in Ukraine — not those scruffs from Kyiv, whom nobody knew, who worked for a pittance in dangerous combat conditions, and were kidnapped by Russian troops, held in basements, or tortured by “separatists.” Or at least so it seemed when you looked at that website.

Dorota Zielińska and I, working on behalf of the Polish Journalists Association (SDP), had to wage an epic battle each time we wanted to publish a note about a case of persecution, imprisonment, or even torture of Ukrainian journalists on the website of the EFJ. Despite our best efforts, only one third of our notes were published.

And now those HYPOCRITES have the audacity to lecture people facing real life-threatening risks about how to behave.

I call upon the spirit of Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell), if he is there somewhere, to give me the strength and perseverance to fight those useful idiots, as they are more of a threat than a series of rounds from an automatic rifle or even mortar fire. Come to think of it, it is difficult tell whether a person is base or stupid.

P.S.

I will write more about the Babchenko case, but — no matter how the sting operation by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) unfolded (so far nothing indicates it failed or produced no results) and regardless of whether the head of the SBU is somewhat corrupt, very corrupt or not at all — I will stand by what I wrote above.