1UA TV

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled in favor of a journalist from RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service who has battled against the handover of her smartphone data to authorities in what the court agreed is an essential defense of a free press and privacy in democratic society. Natalia Sedletska, who hosts the award-winning investigative TV program “Schemes,” has been locked in a three-year effort to protect her phone data from seizure by Ukrainian prosecutors investigating a leak of state secrets nearly four years ago. Natalia Sedletska hosts the award-winning investigative TV program Schemes. (RFE/RL Graphics)The ECHR concluded that Sedletska should be protected from the data search under Article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and stressed the importance of protection of sources for a functioning free press. “[T]he court is not convinced that the data access authorization given by the domestic courts was justified by an ‘overriding requirement in the public interest’ and, therefore, necessary in a democratic society,” the decision read. Sedletska turned to the European rights court after a Ukrainian court ruling in 2018 gave authorities unlimited access to 17 months of her smartphone data. Schemes had reported on several investigations involving senior Ukrainian officials, including Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko, during the period in question. Sedletska has argued that the Ukrainian ruling contravened domestic law and Kyiv’s commitments to a free press. Her application to the ECHR sought protection from the seizure of her communications data as such judicial action was not “necessary in a democratic society,” and was grossly disproportionate and not justified by any “overriding requirement in the public interest.” The ECHR agreed and stressed that “the protection of journalistic sources is one of the cornerstones of freedom of the press.” “RFE/RL applauds this ruling, which protects the confidentiality of journalistic communications and sets limits for executive power,” RFE/RL President Jamie Fly said in connection with the April 1 decision. “The work of investigative journalists, by its nature, is hard and often dangerous. “Credible investigative journalism cannot be done in an atmosphere of official impunity, and without the certainty that exchanges between source and journalist will remain private.” The prosecutors pressed for access to Sedletska’s phone data in connection with a criminal investigation into the alleged disclosure of state secrets to journalists in 2017 by Artem Sytnyk, director of the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau. On August 2018, Kyiv’s Pechersk district court approved a request by the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office to allow investigators to review all of Sedletska’s mobile-phone data from a 17-month period. The European Parliament in 2018 passed a resolution expressing “concern” at the Ukrainian ruling and stressing the importance of media freedom and the protection of journalists’ sources. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the watchdog groups Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders have also backed Sedletska’s arguments. “Schemes” is a corruption-focused TV program produced by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service and Ukrainian Public Television. It had a combined audience across its two channels of more than 10 million last year.  
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President Emmanuel Macron ordered France into its third national lockdown Wednesday in an effort to slow a third wave of COVID-19 infecting his country.Among the lockdown measures, Macron closed all schools for three weeks beginning next Monday.Macron had hoped to avoid a lockdown and the effect it would have on the economy. However, the country’s death toll is nearing 100,000 and it has struggled with a vaccine rollout that has been slower than hoped for. A rise in cases is crippling intensive care units in areas hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.”We will lose control if we do not move now,” he said in a televised address to the nation.He also announced movement restrictions, beginning Saturday, for the whole country for at least a month.In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday that COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in the United States last year, and it boosted the overall U.S. death toll by nearly 16% from the previous year.During the White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters the pandemic trailed only heart disease and cancer last year, accounting for about 378,000 fatalities, or 11% of all deaths in the country last year.Walensky said COVID-19 deaths were highest among Hispanic people, and deaths among ethnic and racial minority groups were more than double the death rate of non-Hispanic white people.Also Wednesday, Pfizer said it had produced 120 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for the U.S.The drugmaker is on track to deliver to the U.S. 200 million doses by the end of May and 300 million doses by the end of July, as it had vowed earlier this year.On Monday, Moderna said it had shipped 100 million doses of its vaccine to the United States. While Johnson & Johnson said it had delivered about 20 million shots to the U.S. in March.However, Johnson & Johnson reported Wednesday that a batch of its COVID-19 vaccine made at a facility in Baltimore, Maryland, had failed quality standards and was unusable. The drugmaker did not give details on what happened to the batch or how many doses were lost.Amazon said Wednesday it plans to have its employees return to the Seattle-area office by fall.The Seattle Times reported Tuesday that the company had told employees it is planning a “return to an office-centric culture as our baseline.”Amazon spokesperson Jose Negrete said the company would not require office workers to receive a COVID-19 vaccine before returning to the office. However, he said Amazon is urging employees and contractors to become vaccinated as soon as they are eligible.Elsewhere Wednesday, European Medicines Agency Executive Director Emer Cooke said the organization has found no scientific evidence to support restrictions on using the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.She told a virtual news conference from the drug regulator’s headquarters in Denmark that they stand by the statement they made nearly two weeks ago that the vaccine’s benefits outweigh any risks.The comments come a day after Germany announced it was limiting the vaccine to people 60 years of age and older due to concerns that it may be causing blood clots.Federal and state health authorities cited nearly three dozen cases of blood clots known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis in its decision Tuesday, including nine deaths. The country’s medical regulator, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, said all but two of the cases involved women between the ages of 20 and 63.Canada, France and Spain have made similar decisions regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine.
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