Reporters Without Borders demands release of six journalists arrested by occupiers in Melitopol

The organization said this in a press release, Ukrinform reports.

"The Russian forces are once again equating journalists with 'spies' in order to intimidate those who refuse to cooperate with them in the occupied territories. We are outraged by these latest arrests and by the humiliating practice of forced public confessions, which violate article 14, on fair trials, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Russia is a signatory. We call for the immediate release of the six journalists," said Jeanne Cavelier, Head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

According to the report, six journalists and administrators of the Telegram channel of the online media Ria-Melitopol and the news channel Melitopol Tse Ukraina ("Melitopol is Ukraine") were detained by the Russian military in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region. The detainees have been charged under the Russian criminal code with "public incitement to carry out terrorist activities, public justification of terrorism or terrorism propaganda."

For almost two months, the fate of the journalists and administrators of the Telegram channel remained unknown. It was a video broadcast on October 29 by Russian propaganda media outlets that made it possible to locate Heorhii Levchenko, Oleksandr Malyshev, Maksym Ruptchev, Yana Suvorova, and Mark Kaliush for the first time since their arrest on August 20 in the Zaporizhzhia region of south-eastern Ukraine. Kostiantyn Zynovkin, who is also featured in the video, was arrested earlier, in May.

The six detainees were forced to "confess" their guilt in the video that the Russian authorities broadcast on their propaganda outlets. They could be facing between 12 and 20 years in prison.

The head of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, Sergiy Tomilenko, said earlier that at least 25 Ukrainian journalists were in captivity in Russia

Ukraine is ranked 79th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2023 World Press Freedom Index while Russia is ranked 164th.