Today a coalition of NGOs and activists from the Media Law Institute, Centre UA, Centre for Combating Corruption, Ukrainian League of Lawyers for combating corruption and the Blueprint for Free Speech has announced the start of the advocacy campaign INITIATIVE 11 aimed at strengthening the protection of whistleblowers in Ukraine. The whistleblower is any person who discloses information about socially dangerous act or generally information of public interest.

Thus, members of the initiative announced their intention to prepare and to advocate adoption of the bill that would create practical opportunities to protect whistleblowers in Ukraine.

The upcoming bill is going to be built on the principles of:

• a broad definition of persons protected by the law;
• guaranteeing the anonymity of persons who report about wrongdoing in the institution;
• creation of reliable channels through which information can be revealed;
• ensure the protection of whistleblowers from repressions in the workplace.

During the presentation of the initiative representative of the Ombudsman on access to information Iryna Kushnir stressed that “Initiative 11” will receive proper support of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights. Readiness to support the legal mechanisms to protect whistleblowers, which will be jointly produced by the public, was expressed by the deputies, who were present at the meeting – Yegor Sobolev and Sergey Leshchenko.

 

 

 

 

This event is co-organized by Media Law Institute under the project “Promoting human rights and democracy, and also supporting the media and civil society in Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Belarus”, implemented by International Media Support (IMS) and funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway.