U.S. STATEMENT ON MEDIA FREEDOM IN UKRAINE

United States Mission to the OSCE
Ambassador David T. Johnson

Vienna, February 1, 2001

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you Mr. Ambassador for sharing with us your government's new decisions. We welcome your readiness to keep us in this Council appraised of important information concerning the state of media freedom in the Ukraine and this is an important announcement about it.

We all appreciate the need for a regulatory framework that treats the matter of licensing and frequencies for the electronic media in your country as is required in all of our countries.

We would urge that as you adopt and implement legislation in connection with such a framework that you ensure that your procedures remain transparent, that they assign the highest respect to freedom of expression, and that you take steps to make sure that this process has neither the intent nor the effect of silencing alternative voices.

We all know about what democracy means in our countries and we know that its measure is not just the rule of the majority, but the protection of liberty of those in the minority as well. Thank you.