Mykhailo Tkach: Petro Poroshenko did not answer any of my questions

Mykhailo Tkach: Petro Poroshenko did not answer any of my questions

Journalist Mykhailo Tkach, who had the chance to ask 4 questions directly to the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, complains that he did not receive a direct answer to any of them.

I asked 4 specific questions to the president (I quote almost verbatim):

- Are you aware that an army of bots was created to protect the president and your inner circle online? They actively attack those who write critical articles or simply express opinions.

- Are you aware that the Security Service of Ukraine organizes rallies against activists? On the program Schemes we ruthlessly demonstrated the evidence.

- Are you aware that those who allow themselves to publish critical materials about the authorities are wiretapped, surveilled, their personal information is spread, and fakes are invented about them?

- Do you consider those who are currently being persecuted for criticizing the authorities to be enemies? And what will you personally, as president, do to stop the persecution of dissenters according to the worst anti-democratic scenarios?

I did not receive answers to any of the four questions. If the president had answered yes, he would have admitted his own inaction, and therefore an interest in the stated facts. If the president had answered no, he would have admitted his own inability to handle the situation with civil society. So, the president, unwilling to answer, resorted in the classic manner to manipulations: he praised himself for freedom of speech, praised the SBU, invited people to a meeting, although very often we do not even receive written responses from the president to requests. Immediately after a journalist asks a question, the microphone is taken away from them; I raised my hand to emphasize the mismatch between the answers and the questions—of course I was no longer given the floor, the president put a period on his answer, and press secretary Tsegolko picked up.

And although I personally favor civilized dialogue, I was forced to clarify without a microphone, but the floor had already been handed to the next journalist.

The president was asked about the non-functioning NACP and the ignoring of electronic declarations. The president replied that this is a unique mechanism to ask an official where their property came from and, in the absence of an answer, punish the person according to the law.

My piece about the apartment of Volodymyr Hroisman’s mother-in-law (the second person in the state) showed that the prime minister’s mother-in-law, who is retired (registered in a five-story building in Vinnytsia), purchased real estate in Kyiv worth about a million dollars, where Hroisman now lives. The prime minister first said that his mother-in-law bought it with her own money, then said that his daughter (his wife) helped, although in Hroisman’s wife’s electronic declaration for that year there are no such expenditures, then he said that another daughter helped, who with her husband drives a Zhiguli and grows apples. link to the material:

What are the results? A fine? An investigation? Punishment? What work of the NACP did the president speak about? What electronic declarations?

Tetyana Danylenko asked the president about the first lady’s column on Akhmetov’s channel. The president replied that his wife did not consult him. A year ago, when we asked what Rinat Akhmetov was doing at the Presidential Administration at night, the president replied that the oligarch came to invite him to a football match. Society swallowed that answer as the truth.

Commenting on the president’s latest jokes about former employees of his channel having made a wrong step when they left: the president, who still owns the TV channel, is not only unashamed of this fact but publicly bullies those who leave the channel.

Dmytro Hnap’s question about the president’s bank.

At first Poroshenko says that he is learning about his bank’s successes right now from Dmytro; then he says that he received analytical reports on this situation, and moreover, later — he demonstrates perfect knowledge of the situation. How is that?

But what stuck with me most was the moment when presidential press secretary Sviatoslav Tsegolko, looking into the crowd of journalists, gave the floor to the ICTV channel, pause, then Sviatoslav gave the floor to another media outlet. Did the channel refuse to ask a question at the last moment or was there an arrangement that that channel should ask a question at that time, but Tsegolko did not see the channel’s representatives?

A false answer to a question from Ukrainska Pravda journalist Mariya Zhartovska was already completely refuted by a post from one of the authors of the film “The Murder of Pavlo,” Anna Babinets. Here is the link.

That many journalists who could have asked uncomfortable questions were not given the floor, while they were allowed to ask, for example, about Eurovision — is a classic technique so the press conference does not turn into a stream of negativity, and a more obvious continuous stream of manipulation from the head of state.

Yes, this is not Yanukovych, when journalists prevailed at press conferences because the uncle simply could not remember a word for a minute or began to sing a song in response. This is Poroshenko. He knows how to choose words, tell Ukrainska Pravda journalists “we are in the same boat” after SBU surveillance of Ukrainska Pravda journalists.

But at this press conference the president was forced not to answer questions, and sometimes to tell untruths. And that is an obvious fact.

After one of the most influential journalists was blown up in the city center and for ten months they did not even find the perpetrators — he can confidently tell journalists to their faces that freedom of speech in Ukraine is the best in all years of independence.

The president ended the press conference with a comment about a butt at Eurovision. This despite the fact that questions about Zlochevsky, removing Yanukovych and his friends from Interpol’s wanted list, Hranovskyi, Rotterdam+, the absolution of Ivanyushchenko, etc., were not raised.

Yesterday and today Facebook feeds are full of that famous photo from Jamala’s performance. It is reshared more willingly than any investigations and exposés. At the same time people reshare (spread) it and at the same time condemn the act. I believe that everyone makes their own choice: either reshare a butt (you don’t need to think here) or think and spread cases when the authorities tell outright untruths as they did today, find new facts and catch them lying again. If you think you should wait until President Poroshenko, in response to the boldest question from the most astute journalist, admits to being guilty, for example, of cooperating with Zlochevsky in the company from which the president’s enterprises take gas in exchange for Zlochevsky’s business immunity, then you face two more and then another 5 years of such waiting.

Trolls, bots and other bloggers are currently writing posts by the dozen that journalism is dead, there were no proper questions and other variations of the same message.

Dear ones, the fact that you continue to be paid, and that you attack in unison, is the clearest proof that journalism is not simply alive — those in power fear and hate it more than ever.

And the unsolved murder of our colleague Pavlo Sheremet and the failure to bring the organizers of Georgiy Gongadze’s murder to justice may become a signal to the enemies of civil society and independent media. A signal that one can not only put pressure but also dispose of people with impunity.

The last time I spoke with Pavlo was almost a year ago. On these same steps after President Poroshenko’s press conference. One can only hope that by the next press conference T-shirts reading "Who killed Pavlo" will no longer be necessary.

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Mykhailo Tkach